{"id":11902,"date":"2019-12-26T08:55:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T12:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=11902"},"modified":"2019-12-30T12:56:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T16:56:37","slug":"martin-hopes-to-increase-number-of-female-fianna-fail-tds-in-next-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=11902","title":{"rendered":"Martin Hopes to Increase Number of Female Fianna F\u00e1il TDs in Next Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin said he hopes to increase the number of female TDs representing his party after the next general election.<\/p>\n

Just 21% of Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s candidates at the local government elections earlier this year were women.<\/p>\n

This figure caused Fianna F\u00e1il, as well as Fine Gael, to fail to meet the 30% minimal number of female candidates to qualify for full payments from a \u20ac500,000 gender-balance electoral fund.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin denied a suggestion that his party is a \u201cboys club\u201d, and said it is still rebuilding from heavy losses it suffered at the 2011 general election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we lost heavily in 2011, we had issues, we\u2019d only 20 TDs. We made a significant recovery in 2016 with 45 TDs, six of those being women.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have more work to do, we have added some fairly good female candidates on this occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a strong team across the country of women who I think will do very well in the general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said he believes his party will come back with more female TDs than it has now after the general election in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to be presumptuous, we have 45 seats now and we are going to go into the general election to win as many seats as possible and then seek to form a government,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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