How three new TDs will balance political and parental duties

Being a TD is not the ideal job for somebody who wants to strike a good work/life balance and it’s much worse for rural TDS who are away from home midweek. Georgina O’Halloran talked to three parents, including two women, about the sacrifices they have made and will make

WHEN the Dáil resumes next week, some 158 TDs — new and familiar faces alike — will take their seats.

Following the introduction of a gender quota in this election they will include some 35 women.

While this figure represents the biggest number of female TDs to ever be elected to Leinster House, the reality is they represent just a small fraction of the heavily male- dominated Dáil population.

The low numbers of women entering political life has long been associated with the difficulties involved in being a TD and juggling a family — both former Fine Gael TD for Laois-Offaly Olwyn Enright (who left politics in 2011) and former independent TD for Wicklow, Mildred Fox (who retired from politics in 2007) made the decision to devote more time to their families.

While the challenges involved in dealing with the demands of life as a TD (non-stop meetings, late night Dáil sittings and for many non-Dublin TDs nights away from home when the Dáil is sitting) together with those of a parent, are no doubt a factor in the small number of women making it through the doors of the Dáil, in reality all the TDs who are parents, both male and female, who will take their seats next week, face considerable difficulties in juggling the two roles for the duration of their term in office.

Balancing act

TD for Meath East, Regina Doherty, who was first elected in 2011 and has been re-elected, has been juggling life as a public representative and a mother of four for the last five years.

Doherty and her husband Declan have two sons aged 16 and 11 and two daughters aged 14 and nine.

Re-elected Fine Gael TD for Meath-East Regina Doherty, with her husband Declan and three of her four children, from left, Kate, Ryan and Grace.

“Normal life would mean I never put them to bed because I’m never home until well after they are gone to bed,” said Doherty. “The way the arrangement in our house works is because I’m not there at night I’m there in the morning… They don’t start school until 9.20 so we have about two hours together… Then I go to work and they don’t see me until the following morning. That’s Monday to Friday,” said Doherty whose husband looks after the children in the evenings after he gets home from work.

“The only way I got to be a TD was to be able to work closely with Declan so it had the least amount of disruption on both our kids’ lives and on me and him... He has taken up the slack where I have less time over the last couple of years. It’s give and take.”

The couple have a long-standing baby sitter who minds the children after school a few days a week, while her father looks after them on Tuesdays and Fridays.

“It works,” said Doherty.

“The negatives (of the job) for me are (having less) time with my family, but I can get by knowing that I go home to them every night and I have little people running into my room at 6.50 every morning to wake me up and to give me hugs. If I lived in Kerry or Letterkenny, I don’t think I could do this job. I don’t think that’s anything to do with being a woman or a man. I would not do this job with my children as small as they were, and still are if I wasn’t at home everyday.” Regina said she believes, however, that there is a, “different dynamic being a mammy to being a daddy” and that; “for some strange reason women feel guilty about everything that happens.” She said she herself had her moments.

“It’s the days where you find out something has happened (at home)... and I say, “How come nobody told me this?’ and I get told; ‘Sure you are never here.’ That kills you.”

Newly-elected TD for Cork South West, Margaret Murphy O’Mahony (Fianna Fáil) faces a three and a half hour trip to Dublin and at least two nights away from her husband Paddy and two children, John (15) and Philip (13) each week when the Dáil is sitting.

Cork South-West’s first female TD Margaret Murphy O’Mahony celebrates her election win.

The Bandon native said that after her election she faced questions from journalists that her male counterparts were not asked.

“There is an awful lot of emphasis — because you are a woman — on how are you going to cope with your children… housework even was mentioned… I think it’s important whether you are a male or female TD that you have good support at home. You really do need your partner 100% behind you or you couldn’t do it,” said Murphy O’Mahony who said her husband Paddy O’Mahony, a sales rep for an oil company, is a “fantastic back-up”. She said Paddy will “work around” their sons when she is away, cooking and collecting them from after-school activities, while she would prioritise family time at the weekends.

“I’d travel a lot during the night just to be able to spend more time at home… I have a son who will be starting his Junior Cert in June and I want to be home that morning so I’ll travel down at night just to be here to be able to say goodbye to him and go up (to Dublin) again.” She said being a TD was “tough” for anybody, particularly for those living far from Dublin, but she felt it is, “doable”. “I’m lucky (because of the boys’ ages). I would have probably held off until now to run… I think they need both parents to be a very big part of their lives when they are smaller,” said the Bandon native.

For fathers as for mothers

Martin Heydon (Fine Gael) who has retained his seat in Kildare South, is married to Bríanne and the couple have two boys, seven-week-old baby Pádraic and 16 month old Martin Denis.

Re-elected Fine Gael TD Martin Heydon with his wife, Bríanne and their two sons, Martin Denis (16 months) and Pádraic (seven weeks old), at the Kildare South count centre in Punchestown last Saturday.

He said he could not do his job without the support of his wife, (a pharmacist) and their extended families who live nearby.

“They make huge sacrifices themselves to allow me to do what I do.” As he lives outside Kilcullen, an hour from Dublin, he knows he is “lucky” to be able to get home most nights when the Dáil is sitting, but there are other challenges.

“If you are not in the Dáil there are a lot of community meetings that happen at night. I found after Martin Denis was born that you are seldom home during the week to put him to bed at night and that’s a very big sacrifice you make,” said Heydon, who added that he sometimes would not see his son for two days when the Dáil is sitting as he is asleep when he leaves and gets home. That’s really hard.

“You do kind of question at times, is it worth the sacrifice… When he’s older he’ll probably miss me not being around even more. You don’t want your kids growing up and resenting the fact that daddy did a certain job that had him away all the time. These are all things that play on your mind a little bit that would not have five years ago.”

The deputy said it is as difficult for fathers as for mothers to be TDs.

“You make the same sacrifices... The same principles apply that you need all your family support network to really kick in to allow you to do it and the burden of being a parent falls more heavily on the (other) parent — irrespective of whether that’s the father or the mother.”