Women councillors on both the Galway city and county councils have joined forces to establish the Galway Women's Caucus - a cross-party and cross-council group.
Women are under-represented on local authorities in the State, with only 23.9 per cent of seats going to women in the 2019 local elections. On the Galway City Council, five of the 18 councillors are women, while the Galway County Council has only seven women on the 41member council.
However, the founding of the Irish Women's Parliamentary Caucus in 2017, has made councillors look at forming local and regional caucuses to improve the representation of women in public life and pursue women’s interests in local policy.
Inaugural meeting
The inaugural meeting of the Galway Women's Caucus was chaired by Dr Rachel Hilliard, founder member of the NUI Galway Women’s Network.
Common issues identified by Galway councillors include undertaking outreach to promote public service to young people and examining reasons why women leave council positions.
The Galway Women's Caucus will apply jointly for local authority funding to support a programme of activities to support the development and impact of the caucus.
