The Government is to give €150,000 to political parties to increase female participation in the next local elections.
The funding is aimed at increasing the number of female representatives at county and city level following the elections in 2024.
The biggest beneficiary is Fine Gael, which will receive €36,000, Fianna Fáil will get just over €30,000 - while the Green Party will get €28,000.
Sinn Féin will receive €15,000, Labour will get just under €24,000 with Solidarity getting €8,000.
The Social Democrats are getting no allocation, while independent groups will get €5,400.
Minister of State Peter Burke told Newstalk Breakfast this has to be a forensic approach.
"The key objective obviously is to increase the number of councillors at the next local elections.
"How we're going to do this is we're going to have a more forensic approach this time.
"We've engaged earlier on this year with all the political parties and independent structures throughout the local authority network.
"And what we're looking at is that [sic] obviously to increase the number of candidates in terms of female and diverse councillors at the next local election."
And he says they need to start with the party structures themselves.
"We also need to know how they get to that point: so we're going to have a forensic audit of the structures of political parties through this funding.
"In normal times, a lot of candidates for our local elections come through that structure - and that structure tends to be male dominated.
"So we're encouraging political parties to have equality officers now and diversity officers, which will in turn give an opportunity to recruit more females into the political party network.
"Our local authority chambers should reflect [the] society that we live in, and they don't at the moment.
"The more councillors we get I think the more TDs and Senators we will get, because that's the main pipeline to bring people into politics".
And he says the issue of maternity leave, which came to the fore as Minister Helen McEntee became the first sitting Cabinet minister to take it earlier this year, will also be tackled.
"I'm absolutely determined to address that as my period as minister in the local government section.
"I'm currently awaiting advice from the Attorney-General on how to resolve it.
"Last year I set up a group, all women, who looked at maternity leave to try and see how we could address it - because what I really want to do is make sure if we have maternity leave for women councillors that it works and that they will use it".
He says he is expecting advice on how to progress this "by the end of this week".
