Women get just 31% of state posts

WOMEN made up less than one third of the estimated 4,500 appointments to state boards during Fianna Fáil’s reign in government.

The “jobs for the boys” culture means women are vastly under-represented in the board rooms of important decision-making public bodies.

More than 4,400 appointments were made to state boards across 13 Government departments since 1997 — excluding Justice and Social Protection, which was unable to provide the data.

Women accounted for just 31% of appointees to these lucrative posts. And just 26%, or 41, of the 158 special advisers employed by ministers over the past 14 years were female.

Board rooms in agencies under the Department of Finance were among the most male-dominated, with women making up less than a quarter (24%) of the 565 appointees by the Finance Ministers over the past 14 years.

A mere 23% of appointees in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation were women who made up just six of the 25 appointees to the IDA and nine of the 28 in Enterprise Ireland.

Of the 15 special advisers appointed by ministers in the department during the last two Dáil terms, three were women.

A target of 40% was set for all boards as far back as 1991 and despite re-committing themselves to this a number of times, successive administrations have failed to deliver on it.

The worst imbalances were in the Department of Agriculture where 20% of appointments were women, or 78 out of a total of 375 board room positions. The department also had an all-male cohort of ministerial advisers.

Of the 72 appointees to Horse Racing Ireland, just eight were women and the 25 jobs in Coillte included just four females.

The Department of Justice, which issued a notice in 2005 ordering all state boards to comply with a 40% quota of women, was unable to provide any figures on its own appointments.

The Government has vowed to clean up the process of appointing people to state boards through a new system of publicly advertising positions, which will ultimately be decided on by ministers.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he has “made it clear to ministers that we have to take into account gender balance, competency and the credibility of people who offer themselves for appointment as chairs or to the membership of state boards”.

But the new process does not contain any explicit rules or gender quotas. A Government spokesperson said the focus will be on “getting the best person for the job”.

The National Women’s Council, which was unavailable to comment on the latest figures, has called for cuts to funding to state boards which do not fulfil a 40% gender target.

The figures were obtained through written responses to a series of Dáil questions by Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer who said he was “staggered at the volume of appointments” and that “the lack of gender balance is a big cause for concern”.

The figures emerged as Fianna Fáil announced it was setting up a National Women’s Forum to “advance the cause of women in the party” and ensure it has more female candidates in the next local election.

Mr Buttimer said: “There seems to have been an anti-woman bias by Fianna Fáil, the Greens and the Progressive Democrats. But I’m confident the Government will have a new approach.”