FF failing to do enough to attract more women: Hanafin

A SENIOR minister accepted yesterday Fianna Fáil was not “doing good enough” to attract women to the party.

Education Minister Mary Hanafin admitted Fianna Fáil was not successful enough in terms of female representation. Only six of the party’s 81 TDs are women, although two — Ms Hanafin and Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan — are full ministers.

However, Ms Hanafin acknowledged the party was experiencing difficulties in meeting its commitments on gender balances.

She argued it was more difficult for a party like Fianna Fáil with so many sitting TDs and established candidates in situ than it was for parties running only one candidate in a constituency.

She also said that trying to encourage women to stand could also be problematic.

“It’s not a question of getting them selected (at conventions),” she said. It’s encouraging them to come forward.”

Ms Hanafin was speaking as details were announced of Fianna Fáil’s 70th Árd Fheis, which will take place in CityWest this weekend. The one-day conference is expected to be attended by 5,000 delegates on a theme of “a fairer, stronger, Ireland”.

No major policies are expected to be unveiled, however, The party is expected to wait until the publication of the Estimates later this month before it rolls out the first of its policies on which it will base its electoral campaign.

This weekend, the party leadership is expected to emphasise the economic performance under a Fianna Fáil-led government as the only guarantee of continuing prosperity and services.

Party’s general secretary Sean Dorgan, speaking at the same conference, said gender balance was a challenge for all political parties, not just for Fianna Fáil.

He said that the party’s own 10-year plan to increase the participation of women in the party would take time to implement.

“It does take that length of time (to work),” he said. “We are looking at the 2009 local elections and beyond.”

He continued: “It’s a slow process. The Taoiseach was very clear that he wanted more women to be part of the Fianna Fáil candidate ticket,” he said.

While Fianna Fáil’s 10-year plan did introduce quotas at lower levels of the party, it did not set out a set target for the percentage of Dáil candidates who will be women. It declined to set a target on the basis that the party was opposed to tokenism.