Archive 2002

12 November 2002
Last Friday CAWP co-hosted a successful conference with the Chief Executives Forum in Armagh, entitled 'Women in decision-making roles: promoting the contribution of women to public life'. Among the speakers were former minister Carmel Hanna, Queen's professor Margaret Mullett, Bristol city council leader Diane Bunyan, and Irish Revenue Commissioner Josephine Feehily who spoke on efforts to increase balanced decision-making in politics, local government, academia, and other spheres. At the end of the conference a new leadership development program for senior women managers, to be launched in 2003 by the Chief Executives' Forum, was announced.

28 October 2002
This weekend Dr Amanda Sloat of the Institute of Governance, who is working with CAWP director Yvonne Galligan on a project on women in EU applicant countries, was profiled on the cover of The Guardian's 'rise' section for graduate professinals. Congratulations, Amanda!

The Observatory has been updated to include women county, city and borough councillors in the Republic of Ireland.

10 October 2002
CAWP director Yvonne Galligan has returned from two speaking trips abroad. This week she addressed an International Studies Colloquium at Middlebury College, Vermont, on women in Irish politics, north and south. Earlier this month she was one of the speakers at the RCE (Women Citizens of Europe) Conference in Valentia, Spain, where she addressed participants on women in public office and higher education.

22 July 2002
After the disappointing result for women in the Dáil election and the new cabinet appointments it was hoped that better news might emerge from the Seanad election. However the results simply confirm that women's progress in Irish politics has stalled. Four new women senators were elected but at the same time three incumbents were defeated and one retired, leaving the number of elected women senators unchanged. More here...

5 July 2002
The final stage of election 2002 - the election of forty-nine members of Seanad Éireann and the appointment by the Taoiseach of an additional eleven - is now underway, with voting to conclude on 17 July. There are 26 women out of a total of 151 candidates, or 17 per cent, slightly less than the 18 per cent of women candidates at the Dáil election. Fianna Fáil has eight women out of 62 candidates (13 per cent), Fine Gael has nine women out of 40 (23 per cent), and half of Labour's four candidates are women. Click here for details.

27th June 2002
The Centre wishes to congratulate the women recently elected mayors, council chairs and deputies for 2002-2003. The number of women mayors has from dropped six to four, including all three of last year's women deputies. The new women mayors and council chairs are as follows: Anna Brolly (Armagh), Betty Campbell (Lisburn), Olive Church (Coleraine), Valerie Kinghan (North Down). There are also four new women deputies, up from three in 2001: May Beattie (Carrickfergus), Anne Brolly (Limavady), Barbara Gilliland (Newtownabbey), Catherine McCambridge (Moyle). Five of these eight councils also had women in leadership positions last year, and we hope that some of the remaining thirteen councils might elect women mayors or deputies next year. However there remain three all-male councils (Antrim, Ballymoney and Dungannon) where for the time being this is impossible. All women councillors in Northern Ireland are listed in our Observatory.

24th June 2002
CAWP research fellow Duncan Sutherland has returned from a seminar in Paris on women's political representation. There were over thirty participants, mostly women legislators and councillors from France, Spain and the UK, and discussions focused on overcoming the challenges faced by women politicians in these countries. There was obvious interest in the recent French parliamentary election in which women's presence in the Assembly increased only slightly despite a 2000 law to guarantee parity. Among the factors cited were the fact that the quota law was not prescriptive but allowed parties to 'buy' their way out of it by accepting reduced state subsidies (which most opted to do), the different electoral system from that used in local elections (where the quota law had a much greater impact in 2001), the possible effect of arrangements between major parties and their smaller partners, and the fact that more effective quotas would have to come from within each party rather than be imposed by the state. The seminar was organised and hosted by the British Council.

18th June 2002
Now that the new government has been unveiled in full there is cause for considerable disappointment. Although women TDs made a slight gain over the 1997 election, their presence in government decision-making has been reduced to its lowest level in a decade. Aside from Chief Whip Mary Hanafin only two women sit in cabinet with departmental responsibilities (Mary Harney and Mary Coughlan). Hanafin will serve double-duty as one of two women among the seventeen ministers of state. Click here for a full list and a comparison with other recent ministries.

21st May 2002
Despite hopes that the number of women TD would increase, partly as there was considerable media awareness of the issue and the National Women's Council of Ireland launched a campaign supporting women candidates, women's gains at the 2002 election were small. Potentially there may be as many as 23 women TDs out of 166, or 14 percent, but only 21 are presently confirmed elected. Read more...

24th April 2002
CAWP director Yvonne Galligan attended the launch in Dublin yesterday of a campaign by the National Women's Council of Ireland to raise awareness of women's issues among candidates in the imminent Irish election. She noted that none of the parties had succeeded in increasing the numbers of women candidates since the last election but held out hope that the number of women TDs elected might still increase. More details of the event are available from both the Irish Times and the Irish Independent.

In anticipation of the election call the Centre's election page has been updated with information about women candidates for the Dáil. The Irish election section of the site will be updated during the campaign and will include coverage of the subsequent senate election. We have a table listing all women candidates known so far, and after the election new pages will be added to the Observatory with biographical information on the new and returned women TDs and senators. Last year's articles about the UK and Northern Ireland local elections and results of this year's abortion referendum will still be available on the Elections page.

18th April 2002
CAWP is very pleased to announce a visiting fellowship program beginning this year for people interested in pursuing research in the area of women in politics and decision-making. Details of the scheme are available on this page, and anyone interested in applying for a fellowship with the Centre should contact our director, Yvonne Galligan.

27th March 2002
We have added the first biographical pages to the Observatory, covering women first elected to the House of Commons in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and since 2000. The information can be browsed by decade, or through any other page where the women's names appear. Data on all other women MPs and TDs will be added later this year.

14th March 2002
To mark International Women's Day CAWP director Dr Yvonne Galligan participated in a conference hosted by the National Women's Council of Ireland on March 8th. Read more about the event in this article from The Irish Times.

The conference and debate took place the day after the proposed constitutional amendment tightening the restrictions on abortion was defeated in a referendum. A new page in the Elections section of this site has results of the vote by constituency.

6th March 2002
The staff of the CAWP were pleased to meet Professor Najma Chowdhury, Professor Nazmunnessa Mahtab, and Dr Sadeka Halim, from the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Dhaka. During their meeting they enjoyed a mutually beneficial discussion on the respective situations for women in public life in the UK, Ireland, and Bangladesh, and the work of the two centres. Their visit to the CAWP was part of a two-week tour of Northern Ireland sponsored by the British Council to foster links between UK and overseas universities.

7th February 2002
The present debate on making a more representative Upper House is nothing new. As CAWP research fellow Duncan Sutherland explained in a lecture at New Hall, Cambridge, the discussions over admitting women to the House of Lords lasted a surprisingly long time and had important ramifications for both the constitution and women in wider society. Click here to read more.

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