Minister will use ‘stick’ to enforce gender balance regulations

Minister of State for Sport Patrick O’Donovan says he is prepared to “use a stick” to make sports bodies fulfil some of their responsibilities around gender balance.

“Sooner or later the stick will be brought out — it is long overdue in some areas where I think we are slacking,” he warned at a conference on women in sport in Dublin yesterday. The government, through Sport Ireland, gives money annually to national governing bodies ring-fenced for women’s sport programmes. It has contributed €18m to such initiatives since 2005 and there has never been any issues with how the money has been spent.

But the minister’s comments noticeably come at a time when sporting bodies in England have been told their government and lottery funding will be reduced if they do not meet a gender quota of 30% women on their boards.