Last few county councils in Mayo have been 'stale, pale and male' -opinion

In a few short weeks we will all have the right to go to the ballot boxes and vote for who we want to represent us at local authority and European level.

But when we look at the local elections, just how representative will the next council be in Mayo?

Of course we don’t know the full answer to that yet but if we look at the make-up of the last few councils in Mayo, it is hard to not to use a phrase many councillors would bristle at – that it is ‘stale, pale and male’.

Nationally, only a quarter of local authority councillors are female. If that is an under-representation, Mayo is on another level.Take the outgoing 30 councillors who sit on Mayo County Council. Only two are female – just seven percent.

By my estimate – and apologies to any councillor who I may have aged prematurely – only four of the current councillors are under 50. Another huge under representation.

All are ‘pale’ – that is to say of Irish ethnicity. It is probably the most understandable under representation of the three but still is one nonetheless.

None of this is to denigrate any councillor individually. If only four councillors were over 50, that would be a problem too.

So would only having two male councillors sitting.

The collective is the issue, the lack of balance in our representation.

Each geographical area is represented accordingly by the council but demographic areas altogether less so.

The previous council was somewhat better – of the 30 elected in 2014 for Mayo County Council, five were female and I make it ten councillors were aged under 50.

In 2009, there were four female councillors among the 31 elected and I estimate six were under 50.

But all of those councils can certainly be accused of being ‘stale, pale and male’.

One statistic that jumps out is that when you assess the eight women elected to Mayo County Council since 2009, three of them have went on to be elected to the Dáil – Michelle Mulherin, Lisa Chambers and Rose Conway-Walsh.

It’s a very high return.

The corresponding figure for male councillors? Zero.

Of course the abolition of the dual mandate meant they each had to forsake their council seat once elected to the Oireachtas.

It is another central government move which weakened local democracy.

The election of Mulherin, Chambers and Conway-Walsh underlines both the capability of those female councillors and the demand for women on the ballot paper.

It is why many people would argue the need for gender quotas. We simply do not have enough women going forward for politics, at local or national level.

Why? It is still not encouraged enough and there is no doubt that certain patriarchal attitudes towards female politicians still stand. You only have to read some of the abuse directed towards leading female politicians on social media to see why many would be discouraged.

Online abuse is a pitfall for male politicians too but not to the same degree.</p><p>But the lack of women in politics in Mayo is not the only shortfall with our local democracy.

We do not have enough younger people going forward and, I would argue, not enough of our brightest and best standing.

Anyone familiar with Mayo County Council will know this.</p><p>Again, we won’t point at anyone in particular, but if you have happened to sit through meetings of Mayo County Council in the past five years, as I have, you will likely come away with some sobering conclusions.

You will see quite a number of very capable councillors.

Others who would be more of the solid variety but, and it gives me no pleasure to say this, too many who are quite simply poor performers.

Of course not all of a councillor’s work is done in the chamber.

And communication skills alone should not be how someone is judged.

You have to be a worker and be able to get things done, at any level of politics.

The old sporting adage about ‘hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard’ applies to politics too.

Many is the extremely capable performer at local or national level who made this error. But let’s not kid ourselves here, the standard of political representation in this county can be underwhelming at times.

There are plenty of very capable and hardworking people in community, cultural, business and sporting life in Mayo who would make excellent candidates but would not have the first notion of standing.

There is reasonable renumeration for county councillors but, realistically, not enough to justify it as a full-time job. It means those running for the council have to have flexible working situations.

It suits certain self-employed people, depending on the nature of their work and their ability to get away for meetings.

It suits others who have flexible work situations and it certainly suits, if they have the energy for it, those who are of retirement age.

Of those elected five years ago, 21 are either self-employed or retired, mostly the former.

Running your own business and working in the private sector is a very worthwhile perspective to bring to the council chamber but, again, it is certainly an over-representation.

People inclined to run might look at how they could make things work with their full-time job and a role as a councillor and think again.

They might look at how much the power of local councillors in Ireland has been eroded – they are among the weakest in Europe in terms of budgets they can control – and think again.

They might look at the lack of the town councils and the greater workload that will throw on their desk and think again.

They might look at the growing levels of abuse directed towards elected representatives online and think again.

They might look at their family situation, ask if they could juggle another ball in the air and think again.

You won’t be long whittling away many of your brightest and best.

Well done to any of those brave enough to go forward – it’s not an easy thing to do. We should all exercise our franchise but the system of local government in Ireland needs a drastic overhaul.