Gender Quotas On the Way - The Electoral (Amendment)(Political Funding) Bill 2011

[Chrisco]

It maybe unconstitutional according to macdowell. What next? 50% of Teachers, Nurses and BeanGardai must be male according to new gender quota equality rule.

Though he wasn't actually able to point to anything in the Constitution to which the proposal may be repugnant.

[Con Gallagher]

why would he be ?

Maybe the most intelligent women are in business and the sciences instead of in politics if that is their preference ? Would you choose your doctor, dentist, surgeon , nuclear power plant technician etc based upon their gender or upon merit ? Why do we need to have more useless politicians inflicted upon us solely due to gender while someone who could be far more qualified might be excluded based upon gender ? Why should politics be a profession where merit is completely ignored to be trumped by gender and gender alone ? If we have a choice between a finance minister with a doctorate in economics and a finance minister who is a teacher are we supposed to choose the one who is female while ignoring the qualifications ? The decisions made by politicians affect people of all genders and such things as deciding the best strategy to gain multinational investment or burning bondholders etc have absolutely nothing to do with gender. Why should politics be unlike any other profession when the decisions made in political office any not any less important ? Have politicians given up any pretence of gaining their jobs on merit and basically admitted that they are all useless therefore lets choose them by gender instead of purposefully by merit ? This gender quota nonsense is the victory of trendy sociologists over the hard sciences.

Your avatar features a cartoon character wearing a t-shirt saying "no fat chicks". Do you really think you assist the teenager's "point" that standards will drop in the Dail if "meritorious men" currently elected are not selected by their party because it wants to maximize funding?

[fionnmccool]

It maybe unconstitutional according to macdowell. What next? 50% of Teachers, Nurses and BeanGardai must be male according to new gender quota equality rule.

As a consequence of gender quotas men should be in a position to demand those sorts of jobs. Why should women get all the recession proof jobs ?

[Con Gallagher]

It maybe unconstitutional according to macdowell. What next? 50% of Teachers, Nurses and BeanGardai must be male according to new gender quota equality rule.

BeanGardai?

[fionnmccool]

Your avatar features a cartoon character wearing a t-shirt saying "no fat chicks". Do you really think you assist the teenager's "point" that standards will drop in the Dail if "meritorious men" currently elected are not selected by their party because it wants to maximize funding?

You obviously have absolutely no sense of humor, irony or sarcasm whatsoever and take yourself too seriously to the point of neurosis. If you engage your brain you will notice that the cartoon character with the tee shirt is actually a fat slob himself and this being a joke on the guy wearing the tee shirt instead of being a calculated sinister slur on women is so damn obvious that only someone completely up their own
ar$e would not see it. You're obviously the ''Don Herron'' of gender politics.

[ruserious]

Your avatar features a cartoon character wearing a t-shirt saying "no fat chicks". Do you really think you assist the teenager's "point" that standards will drop in the Dail if "meritorious men" currently elected are not selected by their party because it wants to maximize funding?

I'm not a teenager, and even if I was, what a moot point. Do teenager's opinion not matter. They and we in our early 20's are the ones who have to pick up the pieces after YOUR generation ruined Ireland. I used to have respect for you as a poster. No more.

[Blucher]

Maybe he should include a quota for Nigerian Taxi drivers.

Or is that going to far?

[EUrJokingMeRight]

BeanGardai?

Yes they protect and serve the beans Bean Gardai, there you go!

[shiel]

It's odd, but I think I'd have less of a problem with of 50% seats being pre-allocated to women than 50% of candidates in an open election being forced to be women. One is just a different system of government, the other is undue interference in a free democratic process.

All candidate selection is 'interference' whether it be basic rules passed by the Dail or party apparatchiks maneuvering behind closed doors.

The present proposal should be challenged for constitutionality. But even if it is declared unconstitutional the under-representation of women is still an issue of fundamental importance to the health of our democracy.

[an innocent abroad]

All those balls in the dail, and all they can do is play games even when their is one for everyone in the audience, What was the no on your cave when you came out to play? Time to crawl back, sleepy sleepy, must be winter! POLITICS IS A LOAD OF BALLS PLAYED BY MEN WHO HAVE NONE