Imposing gender quotas on parties will not attract more women into politics, a Galway city councillor has said. Independent City Councillor Terry O' Flaherty was responding to comments made by gender-equality specialist, Professor Yvonne Galligan of Queen's University Belfast, at an Oireachtas sub-committee meeting on the topic.

Prof Galligan said the best way to increase female participation in politics was to introduce a gender quota.

However, the former Mayor of Galway city, who is the daughter of another long-time councillor and former Galway mayor, Bridie O'Flaherty, said, "I would like to think that people would vote for a woman because of the job she does and how good she is and not solely because she is a woman. So the jury on gender quotas is out on that one for me."

Cllr O'Flaherty said there is a top down effect and that political parties have to be more aware of the problem. "Even when you look at it on a national level, at any conference for councillors it is very male dominated. The Progressive Democrats had a very good gender balance - it was pretty much 50-50 in regards of the Dail, but not at council. I was the only representative in the whole county," she said.

And the present Deputy Mayor of the city said she has seen little progress on gender equality since she entered politics ten years ago and feels there are reasons behind it.

"I have been a councillor since 1999 and I have seen no marked increase at all in female participation, in fact there has been just four women on Galway City Council for a long time now. It is much easier for men, as they are very much involved in sports clubs and the likes, which you don't often get women as involved in."

Cllr O'Flaherty is one of only four female councillors out of 15 at city council level. There are only two female councillors out of a total of 29 on Galway County Council – Eileen Mannion and Bridie Willers - while all of Galway's TDs are men. Galway has one female Senator – Fidelma Healy Eames.

Cllr O' Flaherty's comments come prior to the release of a government funded report on women's participation in politics next month.

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