Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a couple of points of my own. The way I look at it, there are a couple of things involved. On ownership of the whole thing, there were some initial comments made about departmental ownership. I very much welcome the decision of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, on this and his implementation of the pilot programme. I would strongly suggest that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform grabs this by the scruff of the neck, as it would in many other areas, and sayS that it wants to drive this as an integral part of its work and to have ownership of how it will work right across all areas of Government. It cannot be left to departmental ownership.

The second thing is that few good things come out of a recession and a collapsed economy, but there is one small thing which can be looked at in this area. Things are now getting better and money is coming into the system. Fresh money has been made available. Consideration of gender should be hugely important when looking at that money and where it is focused in terms of the programmes and funding commitments to future programmes. It is not a situation of pulling money back from somebody else, but of looking at and pushing key areas in terms of future balance. I accept that it is a pilot programme and that there is headline stuff in it but someone mentioned walking before one can run in this area. This is more strolling than walking. It is very limited. Even as a pilot it does not give us enough in this area on which we should be really focusing.

To put an example to the witnesses, we might consider the area of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, and encouraging women into it. Part of that work is obviously linked to education, schools, and access to STEM for women at second level - particularly in respect of providing courses in single-gender female schools. There is no point thinking about that in an abstract manner at one particular level. That is an example of where there must be an overarching view, because two or three Departments could cross each other on this. There is no point in one Department teeing up a target if it is not being supported downstream.

In one of the more positive examples, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs key indicators really do address some of those issues I and some of the other members have raised. For example, if one is talking about women's involvement in the workplace, an associated key indicator is crucial. In the case of some of the other Departments the approach is just too abstract. The approaches give some interesting information but I do not see how they give us the policy change, or even the start of it, through this pilot programme. I do not know which of the witnesses would like to respond to my comments.