HOLLY CAIRNS IS a fierce advocate for getting more women into politics, but even the leader of a political party can come up against obstacles.

Like many new mothers, she has experienced one of the main struggles facing parents today – finding a childcare place, she tells The Journal in a wide-ranging interview ahead of the Social Democrats National Conference in Cork.

The 36-year-old Cork South-West TD had her first baby on the day of the 2024 general election.

Unlike other workers, at the time, there was no mechanism for female TDs to take maternity leave, officially.

Instead, she had to resort to getting a sick note to take time off. (New laws have since been passed but it only covers senators and TDs, not ministers who wish to take maternity leave).

Last September, she returned to her role as leader of the Social Democrats and upon returning to work, she encountered the common problem of finding childcare. 

Childcare

Telling The Journal how she couldn’t get a place in the Oireachtas crèche when she returned from maternity leave, Cairns said: 

“There’s a crèche in Leinster House, but it’s full, and you can’t have, like, some days and not other days [where the child is in crèche]. You have to have a full week or no days.”

This is despite the Dáil only sitting three days during the week. 

“There’s things like that. Everybody has issues accessing childcare. So this is not unique to the crèche in the Dáil,” she said.

The Oireachtas crèche (which is a fee-paying service for users) provides childcare places for the children of those working in the Oireachtas, such as politicians, advisers and other staff, but like many other service providers, is limited in its capacity.

Childcare is cited as one of the reasons why women who would thrive in politics, as they are already community activists, turn down the opportunity when approached by political parties, Cairns said.

“So often the reason is: ‘I can’t. I have a young family’ or ‘I can’t. I want a young family’. And I think that we can see the impact of that.” 

50% of the population just isn’t adequately represented. It’s just as simple as that.

Cairns said she knows she is not unique in the struggle to find a childcare place, stating that all new parents know that accessing childcare is just “so, so difficult” right now.

With her party’s national conference taking place in her home county, Cairns is getting respite from the five-hour commute she does weekly up to Dublin.

“The commute is not getting any easier,” said Cairns who mentions that her baby daughter is now walking and running around.

“She spends so much time in petrol stations for a little one-year-old. She just wants to run around all the time… So you know, being in the car seat for five hours, twice a week, is tough going for her, but that’s part of it,” she said.

Leinster House Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Family-friendly Dáil

When asked what things she would like to see done in Leinster House to make it more family-friendly, Cairns said two weeks after giving birth to her daughter, she was being asked to come up to Leinster House to sign the writ politicians have to sign after getting elected. 

“That is not compatible with any kind of maternity leave. And it was only when my team were saying, ‘look, it’s not really feasible for her to be asked to come up and drive five hours, two weeks after giving birth, when she’s on maternity leave’… So I think there’s, loads of things that can be done differently,” she said. 

There have been previous reports into how to make Leinster House more family-friendly, with some suggestions that the hours should change.

Currently the Dáil does not sit on Mondays and Fridays.

The Tuesday session starts at 2pm, to allow rural TDs make it up to Dublin from their constituency. It’s a regular occurrence that that politicians could be in the Dáil till well past midnight on some nights.

When asked if the hours should change, she said: 

“It’s really tricky. Because people talk about family-friendly hours being 9-5, and that makes complete sense if you live in Dublin, Kildare, Meath, all of these areas.

“If you live in Cork, the southwest, that potentially means five nights away from your children, rather than two or three. So look, it’s really complex. And I’m not saying that there’s easy solutions to everything, but there are some obvious ones that could be addressed,” said Cairns. 

United left 

Under Cairns leadership, the Social Democrats almost doubled its seats in the Dáil and the party leader has sights on more seats. Speaking about the two by-elections in Dublin Central and Galway West, due to be held in May, Cairns appears optimistic about her party’s chances at a seat. 

When asked about whether it is unwise for the left-leaning parties not to have a joint strategy ahead of the by-elections, building on their success of the Catherine Connolly campaign, Cairns said individual parties are always going to run their own candidate. 

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns Alamy Alamy

“We’ve always encouraged people to vote left, transfer left, and we’ll be doing the same thing in this by-election, like we do in every single election. And we’re so excited about the Social Democrats chances,” she added.

Her comments come on the back of a poll in The Irish Times that shows that voters have little confidence that the government is making progress in tackling the country’s problems.

The results show that a huge majority think progress in tackling problems such as housing, has either stalled or the problems have got worse.

Cairns said the poll results are incredible and clearly show the dissatisfaction of voters, particularly in how the government is addressing the housing crisis, which is a key theme to the party’s national conference this weekend. 

“We’re at a stage now where we have 17,000 people living in homelessness, including 5,000 children. There was a time when 10,000 homeless people would be considered a resining matter for a government. And I think it’s really important that we don’t allow this to become normalised,” she said. 

Cairns had harsh words for the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaders, accusing them of misleading the public prior to the election, highlighting how government representatives were touting that 40,000 homes would be delivered, when in fact, the government fell far short of that figure. 

The Social Democrats leader said she was fed up of hearing phrases like ‘we’re turning a corner’ when it comes to housing, stating homeless numbers are high, there is record rents, and record house prices.

“Affordability appears nowhere in their approach and that is just one of the many problems to this government’s approach to housing. But I think you can see from them that they have run out of excuses,” she added. 

Holly Cairns with Catherine Connolly and Mary Lou McDonald Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Previously, Labour leader Ivana Bacik said some of Sinn Féin’s policies were problematic for her party, so is the same true for the Social Democrats. If the Social Democrats were to ever get into government, it would be alongside other parties, so does she agree with Bacik? 

The Sinn Féin question

The Social Democrats is not completely compatible with any party in Leinster House, Cairn explained, stating:

We have differences with absolutely everybody.

However, she said there are commonalities with parties on the left. 

“In relation to climate in particular, it’s hard to know where we stand with Sinn Féin…  indeed on immigration at times as well,” said the SocDems leader.

“What I do know is this is a country that is very much a multi-party system. There’s never going to be one party in government and in any programme for government talks, there’s going to be a lot of negotiation, there’s going to be a lot of compromise,” she acknowledged.

Cairns said she wants the Social Democrats to have “as much of an impact as possible on the next government”.

In terms of who her party might speak to and who they could be negotiating with post the next election, Cairns said she will cross that bridge when she come to it, but said she would not rule out doing business with Sinn Féin in the future. 

She said there is no party that is going to agree on absolutely everything.

“That is the nature of politics,” Cairns concluded.