Elaine Loughlin: The Dáil should mark the next International Women's Day with real change

This week’s International Women’s Day (IWD) discussion in Leinster House is yet another fine example of how women — but also people with disabilities; those with mental health difficulties; people from minority backgrounds; and those on the margins — are often pacified by authority with meaningless tokenism.

It will take another 131 years to reach gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023.

Aimless chatter from our politicians certainly won’t speed up that delivery.

Cutting a solitary figure on the Government benches, O’Gorman awkwardly began addressing the empty bank of opposition seats on the other side of the chamber.

“I begin by welcoming all present to the chamber and wishing everyone, especially my female colleagues, a happy International Women’s Day,” O’Gorman said, addressing thin air on Tuesday evening.

It is more than a little depressing that a discussion focusing on 50% of the population only managed to draw 0.63% of elected representatives into the Dáil chamber, the figure jumped 1.25% of TDs if Leas Ceann Comhairle Catherine Connolly, who was chairing the session, was counted.

Scant attention to women's issues 

But this was just the latest incident in a lacklustre approach taken by politicians to women’s issues.

Last week just three speakers, Ivana Bacik, Réada Cronin, and O’Gorman, thought it important enough to turn up to a discussion on the report of the Joint Committee on Gender Equality.

It was a similar scenario back in January when just 10 TDs showed up to speak on a Labour reproductive leave bill, with not one politician from Fianna Fáil, the Social Democrats, or the Green Party contributing.

O’Gorman was eventually supported by Sinn Féin’s Rose Conway-Walsh who, despite being a few minutes late, was the first to take up a seat for the IWD statements before being joined by party colleagues Louise O’Reilly, Sorca Clarke, and leader Mary Lou McDonald. Labour leader Ivana Bacik looked equally lonely on her side of the Dáil, surrounded only by empty chairs.

Speeches akin to Leaving Cert essays

Akin to students being presented with a Leaving Cert essay title, those who did find their way to the Dáil took a wide and varied interpretation of the topic at hand.

It turned what was an already prosaic speaking session into a haphazard succession of contributions that certainly won’t do much to advance gender equality or tackle discrimination.

In a week that culminated in yesterday’s referendum votes, the minister took the opportunity to point out many Government-led changes that have brought about greater equality in our country.

And in fairness to O’Gorman, he stuck around to listen to all TDs during what had been pencilled in for a two-and-a-half hour slot but was cut short due to the lack of speakers.

McDonald adopted the theme of “solidarity” by acknowledging “every woman who works minor miracles every day to ensure the bills are paid, the children are fed, and her family makes it to the end of the week, every woman denied a home who courageously shields her child in emergency accommodation, and every sister who, inspired by the powerful humanity of the women of the Cervical Check scandal, fights for the dignity of proper healthcare”.

Independent TD Verona Murphy made an emotional intervention in raising the case of teenager Caitlin Gaffney whose family have taken on a lengthy fight to get a place for their daughter in a specialist facility for anorexia treatment.

Others raised everything from the plight of women and girls in Gaza to gender quotas in politics, as well as women’s achievements in sport; the ‘Grace’ case in the South East; mother and baby homes; maternity care, and transgender issues.

Blessed among women, Pa Daly chose to namecheck no less than 13 female community leaders doing powerful work in his constituency of Kerry.

A similar tactic was deployed by Tipperary’s Mattie McGrath. However, he only managed to drum up a list of six women, including his late mother Mary and a smattering of nuns.

And so on it trundled with deputies briefly popping into the chamber to say a few words before scuttling off again.

'The same problems always remain' 

It took Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns to point out the ridiculous nature of it all.

“We can all recycle and reuse our speaking notes year on year because the same problems always remain. So here I go again,” she said before launching into a long list of issues that have yet to be addressed for women. These included:  

• Acting on the recommendations of the review of abortion services in Ireland; 
• Delivering accessible HRT treatment and medication; 
• Providing training for GPs and information about the reality of peri- and post-menopause to women so they know and understand the symptoms; 
• Widening access to home birth services; 
• Addressing family homelessness; 
• Rolling out more domestic refuge spaces across the country. 

Cairns told the Dáil: 

International Women’s Day is a day of celebration but it is also an exercise in frustration — year after year raising the same issues. 

Reinforcing the repetitive and somewhat uninspiring approach taken, Catherine Connolly pointed out that this was her eighth year to make an IWD speech in the Dáil.

O’Gorman later stated that he was making his fourth IWD contribution as minister.

IWD should be celebrated, but marking it with box-ticking events — whether that’s inside or outside Leinster House — is pointless.

Before scheduling the annual slot for meandering statements on IWD next year, politicians a might think of ways to avoid another poorly-attended talking shop.

Instead of rehashing the same woman-themed generic speeches, politicians might use the allocated slot to progress specific laws that would actually make a difference to the lives of women.

A focused debate on a single selected priority issue might also lure more TDs into the Dáil, but then again on women’s issues it might not.