“Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver.”

With the return of the Dáil this month, Lise Hand questions just why our national politics remain steadfastly male-dominated.

As the shutters roll upwards on Leinster House this week, marking the end to its traditional lengthy summer recess, not every Oireachtas member will be trotting back to work feeling particularly refreshed.

The last term came to a fractious end with the hullabaloo that erupted over former minister Katherine Zappone’s hooley in The Merrion hotel – ...