Gender make-up of Leitrim County Council will be flipped March 6

Members of the WoMeN’s (Western Midlands and Northern) Regional Caucus will mark International Women’s Day this March with a ‘flipping great idea’; for one day only there will be a complete reversal of the gender balance in Leitrim County Council.

The novel idea of a ‘gender reversal’ of the council chambers is just one of many ambitious projects that the 42 female county councillors who make up the WoMeN’s Regional Caucus will action this year as part of their programme of work for 2023.

A number of council chambers in the region will be transformed this month to mark International Women’s Day by having a complete reversal of the existing gender make-up of the chamber. Specific agendas will differ between Local Authorities with a range of topics and guest speakers on the day. In County Cavan for example MEP for the Midlands-North-West constituency Maria Walsh will be a guest speaker. Other chambers will focus on the theme for International Women’s Day which is #embraceequity.

 Only 25.5.% of county councillors across Ireland are women - there are only 3 females out of 18 council members in Leitrim. One of the goals of the caucus is to retain currently elected female councillors and also to support more women to enter local politics in rural Ireland in the next local elections of 2024.