Ms Geraldine O'Brien:

My background is in civil and public services. Across Departments, we have been trying to redress the imbalances for the past 20 years. We have a workforce that is predominantly female but where male and female colleagues enter the workforce at the same time with the same qualifications and have the same length of service, the chances of the female progressing any further than middle management are 24% of those of the male.

Many combinations need to be addressed. This is an important Bill but we also need to fix the problems as we go forward. Great strides have been made in the public service but there are still some issues. One of them is flexible working, which is not always available. At lower grades, flexibility is available but it is predominantly females who take time out of work for childcare or elder care and, when they look to move on, flexibility is not an option so they tend to stay where they are and where they can avail of it. By the time their responsibility for caring is over and done with, they are on the back foot and their male counterparts, who joined on the same day with the same qualifications, have gone ahead of them in leaps and bounds. They also lose the confidence to challenge.