A women's equality organisation has called for gender quotas in future Northern Ireland local government elections as just over a third of newly elected councillors are female.
Women make up 145 (31.4%) of the 462 councillors across the region's 11 councils following elections earlier this month.
The number is an increase on the previous local government poll in which 122 of the councillors elected (26.4%) were women.
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Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council has the highest proportion of female councillors at 15 out of 40 (37.5%).
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council has the lowest with just nine women (22.5%) among their 40 councillors.
Of the main parties, Alliance has the highest proportion of female councillors with 44.8% as 30 of their 67 councillors are women, followed by Sinn Féin with 59 women among their 144 councillors (41%).
The SDLP has 11 female councillors out of 39 (28.2%), the DUP has 30 out of 122 (24.6%) and the UUP has 12 out of 54 (22.2%).
None of TUV's nine councillors are women. The Green Party has two women among their five councillors, while People Before Profit's two councillors and PUP's solitary councillor are men.
The National Women's Council of Ireland called for the introduction in council elections of gender quotas, a system aimed at increasing women's representation in political life.
Gender quotas can involve measures such as requiring political parties to include a minimum proportion of women among their candidates in elections.
In the Irish Republic, 40% of candidates for parties in Dáil elections must be female and 40% male or they lose half of their state funding.
Rachel Coyle, head of campaigns and mobilisation at NWC, said: "Gender quotas are essential as the rate of change is far too slow.
"At the current rate it would take another five electoral cycles, or 20 years, to achieve parity at the polls.
"32% of candidates that went to polls on May 18 were women. Women now account for 31% of councillors elected across the north. So when women are on the ticket, they get elected.
"Parties need to do more to ensure women get on the ticket in the first place and we are calling for gender quotas as a critical first step."
Aoife Clements, founder of campaign group 50:50 NI which encourages women to become involved in politics, said more work is needed to increase the representation of women.
She said: "While it's great that the 31% is an increase from the last local election it is quite far from where we should be which is 50%.
"We saw that there are a number of barriers for women entering local politics including harassment which must be tackled.
"There are some wards including Ballymena where no women at all have been elected which is disappointing, but we are happy that overall we have more women on our councils."
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