Female politicians toast first woman elected to office

Scores of women elected to the Oireachtas today packed the Dáil chamber to mark the 90th anniversary of the first female TD and MP.

The momentous event, involving more than 70 former and current TDs and Senators, also commemorated the 1918 poll in which women had the right to vote for the first time.

Independent Senator Ivana Bacik said the special ceremony was held to celebrate the remarkable achievements of Ireland’s female politicians through the generations.

“I hope this event will serve both as a celebration of the many remarkable women who have been TDs and Senators over the past 90 years; and as a reminder of the low levels of women’s participation in Irish political life,” she said.

“This will be the first time in the history of the Irish State – in the nine decades since that historic 1918 election – that the Chamber will be nearly half filled with women representatives.”

In December 1918, revolutionary nationalist Constance Markiewicz became the first woman elected to the British House of Commons as an MP, but she turned down her seat.

Instead she became the first woman TD to take part in the newly established Dáil Éireann.

Excerpts from two speeches by her were read aloud in the chamber today by Catherine McGuinness, former Senator and Supreme Court Judge.

One of the extracts was from a speech to the Students’ National Literacy Society in Dublin in 1909 and the other she gave to the Irish Women’s Franchise League in Dublin in 1915.

A photograph was taken to mark the historic event.

Ms Bacik said the ceremony was modelled on a similar exercise carried out in the Portuguese parliament in 1994.

“The photograph taken at that event, of women politicians filling half of the Portuguese parliamentary Chamber, achieved a widespread impact, and helped greatly to increase awareness about low levels of women’s political participation,” Ms Bacik said.

“I hope that this event will have a similar effect here in Ireland, in helping to encourage women to come forward and participate more actively in public life.”

Currently, just 22 of the 166 Dáil members are women, while 13 out of 60 in the Seanad are female.

Over the last 90 years women have filled just 370 of the total of 6,072 Dáil and Seanad seats.

“Today as we celebrate the historic election of Constance Markiewicz by honouring the many women who have entered the Oireachtas over the past 90 years, we might well reflect on the need to encourage more women to enter political life – so that some day our parliamentary chamber may be filled with equal numbers of elected women and men in a true ’parity democracy’,” Ms Bacik said.