Sarah Harte: Holly Cairns being a working mother is paying off for the Social Democrats

We need women to have babies to replace the ageing population, raise workers and fund public services, writes Sarah Harte, who says more support is needed

Holly Cairns has been unabashed about discussing the logistical problems of juggling work and home.

Sometimes you’d question how far we’ve come in accepting female power. Holly Cairns, leader of the Social Democrats and Cork South-West TD, is still confronting the barriers that motherhood creates for women in politics. 

But let’s return to that. I was staying two minutes away from the historic Ship Street Great, where a plaque on the wall of Dublin Castle commemorates the suffragette Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.