Just three women selected for Dáil reform committee

Just three women have been selected to the newly formed committee on Dáil reform.

The committee, which will look at overhauling how the Dáil works to make it more inclusive, is to meet for the first time today. Of the 15 members, Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats, Regina Doherty of Fine Gael, and Louise O’Reilly of Sinn Féin are the only women.

Proposals expected to be discussed include changing leaders’ questions, altering the rules around technical groups, and extending the speaking rights of opposition members.

Fianna Fáil TD Anne Rabbitte said: “We have spent the last six months talking about gender quotas, you have to ask whether gender quotas should have applied here. I wonder is balance going to be reflected in Dáil reform.”

Fellow TD Lisa Chambers agreed that she would have liked to have seen more women selected to the committee.

Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the State’s symphysiotomy redress scheme has denied files are being scrapped after the claim was made by opposition TDs and a patient group.

Independent TD Clare Daly, Survivors of Symphysiotomy spokeswoman Marie O’Connor, and a number of independent experts claimed potentially vital legal files are being destroyed. The campaigners said “all unclaimed hospital records” are being scrapped “without the knowledge or consent of applicants to the scheme” since March 20, and called on TDs and senators to sign a letter to Health Minister Leo Varadkar seeking the immediate cessation of the move.

However, scheme chair Judge Maureen Clark insisted no records are being destroyed. “To re-iterate, all the documents which I have received are copy documents, and in many cases copies of copies. The original documents remains in the hospitals’ records storage, local and national archives and in GPs’ offices. Their integrity is not affected,” she said.

The redress scheme was set up to provide compensation to hundreds of women who were forced to undergo the barbaric symphysiotomy procedure during childbirth.