Why Women’s Rights – TD Holly Cairns

April 26, 2021

ActionAid Ireland is an international aid organisation fighting for women’s rights, social justice and an end to poverty. Here, Social Democrat TD Holly Cairns answers questions for our blog series Why Women’s Rights. TD Cairns is currently the only female TD in Cork, which has over half a million residents.

TD Cairns, why do women’s rights matter to you?

Women’s rights are human rights.

Women make up 51% of the population, but only 22.5% of the Dáil. There are 18 TDs representing County Cork in the Dáil. I am the only female.

This country has a history of treating women like second-class citizens from the Magdalene Laundries to the Marriage Ban to the 8th amendment. This treatment continues today when you look at things like the Cervical Check scandal and the Mother and Baby Homes report.

We need more women in politics and in power for a more equal society. Every aspect of society will benefit from more balanced representation.

What is your proudest achievement?

My proudest achievement has to be getting elected as a TD in Cork South West in the 2020 General Election. I had only been a county Councillor for nine months (I got in by a single vote in 2019) and Cork South West has traditionally been known as a very conservative constituency. There were only three seats up for grabs so it was a very tall order for a relatively-unknown county Councillor from the Social Democrats to get a seat and I don’t think anyone apart from my team and I believed that it was actually possible.

If you could change one thing for women what would it be?

I would love for women and girls to feel confident enough to put themselves forward for leadership positions and I would love to have a gender-balanced Dáil.

When I was running for election last year my team and I used to give out ‘More Mná’ badges to voters we met on the doorstep. We couldn’t keep up with the demand. More Mná in positions of power and leadership is exactly what this country needs.

What is your hope for a post-covid world?

My hope is that we don’t forget the lessons we’ve learned.

The pandemic exposed so many vulnerabilities in our society that I think most of us were able to ignore up until now.

Take the clusters in meat plants for example. This exposed the fact that many workers in meat plants live in overcrowded accommodation and are not entitled to sick pay.

It also exposed the power and sway of the beef barons and the lack of political will to tackle the serious issues in this industry.

Thanks to TD Cairns for contributing. Pictured left to right are Social Democrat TDs Jennifer Whitmore; Holly Cairns and Catherine Murphy)

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Learn about ActionAid’s women’s rights programme here. Irish Aid, the Department of Foreign Affairs, fund this programme.

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.