"What class of a woman would want to go traipsing off to Strasbourg with a bunch of men? It would be a strange sort entirely, I'm thinking. Leaving the home, the family, the children, and consorting with strange men, maybe for weeks on end.

Think about her poor husband, coming home after work and no dinner waiting for him!

Musha, what's the world coming to? Me own poor dead mother, may she rest in peace and not be dug up by some developer's backhoe, wouldn't recognise it."

Sound reminiscent? Sound strange? Does it sound like anything you would want to hear in the twenty-first century?

Well, something very like it came out of Ireland only last month.

It happened this way.

The European Parliamentary Assembly, of which Ireland is a member, was meeting in Strasbourg, but when it got there the Irish delegation was surprised to learn it had no voting rights. Why? Because it was an all-male delegation. As they learned to their undoubted consternation, the Council of Europe had decided that each national delegation should include "at least" one woman.

No female, no vote!

The eight good men and true, selected to represent the Twenty-six county Republic of Ireland, where women make up more than half the population, were caught in an embarrassing situation.

One delegate admitted the embarrassment, but blamed it on the shortage of women in the Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament. Then he added: "The notion of going off on your own to these meetings for a woman would be quite unattractive."

It surely would, if the rest of the Irish eight shared the same talibanistic thinking.

To emphasize the fact that women are "in short supply" in Irish political life, at a European Union conference on gender equality held in Dublin early in February, it was pointed out that Ireland has one of the lowest rates of female representation in the national parliament, Dáil and Seanad, at 12 per cent compared to 17 per cent on average across Europe.

How does this compare with Canada, a natural question to ask for an e-zine linking the two countries? Not good. In 2000 female members of the Canadian House of Commons made up 20 per cent of the membership.

Ireland has a long, long way to go in reaching gender equality in public life. However, it can boast that its elected Heads of State, current and immediate past, are two women, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese.

But there's some light at the end of one tunnel.

Portmarnock Golf Club, on the outskirts of Dublin, with a male-only membership, has been found in breach of the Equal Status Act by a District Court judge.

A spokesperson for the Equal Authority in Ireland said the ruling "would change perceptions about women" and should allow them join any golf club they chose.

The Chairperson of the National Women's Council said: "We are very glad the decision vindicates the action of the Equality Authority in taking proceedings against the club under the Equal Status Act. It is important to have robust equal status regulations that can make those who discriminate accountable under the nine grounds of the Act."

That's one "rub of the green" which is welcomed by Irish women.

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