There has been a noticeable increase in the number of women candidates for the upcoming local election, surpassing the count from the 2019 election with three weeks remaining for nominations to close. As of this Monday, 562 women have declared their candidature, compared to the 561 women in the previous election. Final nominations will close on May 18th, and we anticipate further growth in this number.
The data comes from the blog of Dr Adrian Kavanagh, a lecturer at Maynooth University, who tracks the number of women putting themselves forward for election. The current figure of 562 signifies exactly 33.2 per cent of the total 1,695 candidates who have announced their intent to run so far. This number is significantly higher than previous years; in 2009, merely 314 women were in the race for the city and council elections, increasing to 440 in the 2014 elections.
Although there are no set quotas for local election candidates, it’s mandatory for women to comprise 40 per cent of the contenders in the next general election. Dr Kavanagh posits that this requirement is a key driver for increased female representation. Many are using local elections to bolster their profiles.
However, Katie Deegan, a spokesperson for Women for Election, attributes the rise in female candidates to several reasons. Many women have expressed a desire to be more involved in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, having seen the impact of decision-making on their communities at both the local and national level. Deegan emphasises the growing awareness regarding the scarcity of women in local authorities. She is a staunch advocate for introducing quotas in local elections to foster a necessary surge of women in the system, since progress has been slow thus far.
Without quotas, she warns, male lineage would continue the domination of local authorities as seats often pass from fathers to sons and grandsons. At present, only one in four councillors are women, with 41 out of 166 local authority areas completely devoid of female councillors. The only local authority demonstrating equal gender representation is the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council, boasting 19 women in a council of 40. The Mayo council, on the other hand, has a mere two female councillors out of 30, a disappointingly low 7 per cent.
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