Mr. John Treacy:

When we talk about governance, as Ms Keane highlighted, we are talking about many different principles. When governing bodies are looking at the various pieces, what the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport is basically saying is that the organisations must comply or explain. If one is talking about leadership of an organisation, questions to ask include whether it has a strategic plan in place and if the board members know what are their responsibilities. They are corporate governance pieces that need to be there as essentials. Control mechanisms must be in place and transparency, and the leadership must behave with integrity. The vast majority of governing bodies can advance all those types of pieces in terms of the principles of the code. If they cannot advance them, they can explain why they cannot do so. I think all the governing bodies can get to that point by 2020. We need to be resourced to ensure that we have the human resources to advise those governing bodies in terms of compliance with the code and to give guidance to them. It is an important piece and if they cannot comply, they can explain why that is the case.

It is the same with the gender quotas. If it is an all-male sport, the issues involved in getting gender quotas on boards are far more difficult to overcome. Many governing bodies are moving in this direction anyway by ensuring that women are represented on boards. Some governing bodies have women as presidents, which is a very good thing. That has been happening for the past number of years. It is a matter of making sure that we give it the time, which is really the issue, and that we move in that direction.

The Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, and the Minister of State, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan, have raised this issue and it is being debated. It is high on everyone's agenda, and it gives everyone time to think about it and act upon it. Keeping the issue on the agenda and raising it is very good because we all need to ensure that we have good corporate governance. Having females on boards is definitely adding to the quality of board representation.