WATCH: Women make up a third of candidates 

As the count for Local Elections took place at the SETU Arena, Waterford News and Star spoke to several women in public office about the current state of gender equity in Government. 

In speaking with other public representatives, male and female, there is a general consensus that the political realm is too often fraught with harassment towards women. 

Waterford TD and Minister for Mental Health and Older People Mary Butler (Fianna Fáil) spoke about the issue.

Minister Butler said: "I was first elected to Council in 2014, I took the third seat of six in the Comeragh area, which is a five-seater now. There were 4 women of 32 Councillors.

"I'll always remember when I went to the Dáil in 2016, I was the chair of an Oireachtas committee, I chaired many, many meetings for the Oireachtas Commission of Business Enterprise and Innovation.  Often I was the only female in the room."

She pointed towards the heightened scrutiny that women in office receive: "I personally believe that social media and the abuse women get is definitely a deterrent. Men can run and there's never a comment on what they're wearing and how they look. But there will always be a comment in relation to female candidates on their weight, their hair, what they're wearing, how they look. You know, that's that's hard on people."

Incumbent MEP Grace O'Sullivan (Greens) spoke about her party's position on gender parity but also the coarsening of public discourse. 

She said: "The Greens were one of the few parties that had 50/50 representation, more or less. From my perspective its something we need to strive for, much more. 

"We need to acknowledge that if you want to have fair representation, if you want to have equality, you need, we're still a long way off."

Grace continued: "We have really a strong history of good strong women in politics. And we need more, certainly as we see a shift towards male masculinity and the pushback against women.

Pushback

Grace called the situation 'a bit of a shame."

"There's a lot of toxicity there. This is not not conducive to women stepping forward. So we need to make sure that we legislate religiously, thoroughly to make sure that we do have a gender balance and that we have diversity in politics as well."

As the count progressed into Sunday, multiple female candidates were eliminated, while others fought for a seat. 

Longtime Councillor Mary Roche shared her thoughts on her own situation as she waited for the counts to come in for her constituency of Waterford City East.

Similarly to Minister Butler, Cllr Roche has often been in the lonely position of being the only woman in a room of power.

Mary had been an Independent Councillor for years before joining Social Democrats in late 2022. 

"I think I'd rather be pessimistic and surprised rather than optimistic and kicked in the guts," she said.

"So, I'm pessimistic enough about the chances of holding that seat, which would be a pity because it means there would be no woman in that ward and I have held that seat for, more or less, 25 years, 10 years on my own as the only woman on the Council, in fact, at the time," she added.

"The vote for women hasn't come through which is disappointing, but look, that's the way it goes, its the electorate's vote and they may do with it what they please."

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Nonetheless, she is glad to see a few fellow candidates succeed: "Lola (O'Sullivan) did very well in Tramore-Waterford City West, she topped the polls, which is great to see a woman top the poll, its reasonably unusual. 

"Niamh O'Donovan (Fine Gael) down in Lismore has done quite well, which is great to see a new woman candidate coming in there, congratulations to her."

With only two more female candidates expected to win a seat, Mary said: "Its a poor old showing, if its 3, its only less than 10%, if its 4, its slightly above."

"Cristíona Kiely (Greens) is a really excellent candidate in Tramore so it is very disappointing to see her going, as is Stephanie Keating (Fianna Fáil) in our Ward."

"Its gutting to see vote collapse, you think that, in my case at least, 25 years of keeping your shoulder to the wheel would count for something."