Ms Nora Stapleton:

I will comment on the gender diversity on boards toolkit.

We launched that back in January through webinar as everything is virtual. Again, probably approximately 160 people turned up to the launch and we followed up to ensure they had all the resources to go with that. We also include that information in any other governance pieces we roll out with the sector, whether with local sports partnerships or national governing bodies. In the Women in Sport week we hosted a women in leadership webinar and, again, there were about 600 people registered for that. Just recently we had our annual governance seminar posted by Sport Ireland, where gender diversity on boards had one of the key spots. Again, we brought up the toolkit to show national governing bodies and local sports partnerships that their board members and chief executives can use that toolkit.

Dr. May also mentioned the women in coaching toolkit, created off the back of the research we did on female coaches in Ireland. The toolkit is designed for the organisations and we launched it in September this year, with approximately 160 people from the sector attending. We followed that up with a symposium that was to bring people through the various content pieces of the coaching toolkit and how to use it effectively. We had 60 representatives from the national governing bodies and local sports partnerships attending that half-day event, where they were treated to guest speakers and case studies from national governing bodies that had already implemented areas of the toolkit.

We realise this is something we will definitely have to bring out again probably twice per year. We may also have to set up smaller networks of sports and we are looking to put certain actions in place from that toolkit so if people are interested in recruiting female coaches, for example, a smaller cohort of sports may be able to work with and support one another, sharing how they might try to recruit more female coaches to the sport.