Women’s Caucus host webinar
A webinar will take place this month to encourage more women to enter politics.
Women in Local Politics – Be the She Change will see women from across Ireland take part in the Cork organised event.
A keynote address will be given by Geraldine Byrne Nason, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who drew global acclaim for her passionate speech on women’s rights in Afghanistan at the time of the US exit from the country.
Joining her will be Jill Pitcher Farrell, the first female Chief Scout as well as Senator Eileen Flynn, the first Traveller woman to serve in the Oireachtas and Cllr Uruemu Adejinmi, the first African woman to be elected mayor in Ireland.
Nationally, 226 women took seats in the local elections in 2019, making up 24 per cent of all councillors across the country. In Cork city, 24 women out of a total of 82 candidates, ran in these elections. Six were successful, meaning just 19 per cent of the current elected members on Cork City Council are women.
Cork city also has a growing diverse population. Over the five-year period since 2011, only eight counties in Ireland recorded an increase in their non-Irish national population.
Cork city saw the largest increase with non-Irish nationals making up 14.1 per cent of those living in the city.
Cork saw a rise of 17.2 per cent in new communities between 2011 and 2016.
The Cork City Profile 2018 also reveals that over 42 per cent of the population living in Cork city centre are non-Irish nationals. Some 53 candidates from outside Ireland put their names forward in the 2019 Local Elections with eight elected. In Cork city there were three candidates who were non-Irish nationals.
One of whom was Dr Lekha Menon Margassery, an academic from the Indian state of Kerala, who ran as an Independent following her attendance at the Department of Justice and Equality seminar ‘Engaging Migrants in Politics’ and engaging with the Shape Your City initiative. Organised by Cork City Council in conjunction with its Women’s Caucus, it is supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
A panel discussion with the Caucus’s Chair, Cllr Mary Rose Desmond, Cork City Council Chief Executive Ann Doherty and former Lord Mayor of Cork Catherine Clancy will be moderated by Dr Theresa Reidy, Department of Government and Politics at UCC.
Cllr Desmond said: “We are making a real effort to encourage as many people as possible, women and men, as we can to join this webinar as the challenge of increasing the number of women in local politics isn’t going away.
“Put simply, women make up half of the population yet there aren’t anywhere enough of us at the tables where decisions are being made about our lives.
“The upcoming webinar will be enormously interesting as women from diverse backgrounds and from political and non-political forums will take a hard and honest look at the systemic barriers and fears that stop many women from seeing themselves get involved in local politics.”
Cllr John Sheehan will discuss period poverty with a student from St Angela’s College who has taken part in the Young Social Innovators - YSI Ireland project.
Cllr Garrett Kelleher will take part in the second panel discussion moderated by Senator Flynn.
Caroline O’Driscoll, partner at Deloitte Ireland and co-founder of iWish, will conclude the webinar.
The webinar will be interpreted by two Irish Sign Language interpreters. It’ll take place on 17 November from 12-1.30pm on corkcity.ie. Register on Eventbrite.