Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister was absolutely correct in his last statement. It is a matter of how we frame, not advertise, what the careers are going to look like for our younger students.

I have some questions but I want to start on a point that is very close to my heart but that also gives me a bit of a nervous twitch. I am not going to lie to the Minister in that regard. We have come phenomenal distances since I was a teenage lone parent who re-entered education. The barriers at the time were such that without really good support, you were simply not going to get there. I am talking about the late 1990s. We have made real progress in that regard, which has to be acknowledged, but there are still barriers. Unless we can get to grips with them, we will continue to see women failing to meet their own career objectives. Also, we will not benefit from them being in the workplace. That is what is really key here.

One of the issues that repeatedly comes across my desk is the back-to-education scheme. The Minister spoke about emerging technologies and he was correct to do so because technology is emerging and changing constantly. He needs to consider the idea of someone accessing back-to-education supports more than once. If we are serious about asking people to work in particular areas, we need to start removing the barriers that exist.

On STEM subjects, I am proud that my child who was born in the late 1990s is now a woman in STEM herself and absolutely loving it. Again, however, she is one of those who made her career choice not by way of any direct path but by a meandering road. That is acceptable and there is nothing wrong with that; a meandering path sometimes gives us the opportunity to learn life skills along the way.

What gives me the nervous twitch is the non-adjacent rate. I say this as somebody whose constituency is quite rural. I recognise that we need to have a limit and a reduction, which I welcome. In my home town, Mullingar, there are people who access public transport to get to Tús in Athlone. Some might live 29 km away while others might live 31 km away, which is over the threshold of 30 km, but those in each category receive a different rate of support. They all get on the same bus in the morning. That is one of the small barriers. It is not major but small, yet it has an impact.

My colleague is correct in speaking about these issues. A saying that came to the fore in recent years is one that I truly believe in: you cannot be what you cannot see. We all remember it. It popped out around when Chris Hadfield had a better Internet connection on the International Space Station that some of us did at home, but it is true. This falls very nicely back under recommendation No. 31, on how we promote gender equality and avoid gender discrimination. Women who do jobs that may not have been traditionally associated with their gender - the same applies to men - are the ones we need to see on our screens and hear on our radios. These are the ones who can have a genuine impact on younger children such that the latter will say there is something in what is being said and that they might join CoderDojo, the Midlands Science club or another such group as a consequence. That is critical.

One of the keys to encouraging more women into apprenticeships is providing wider options. Plenty of careers already have a hybrid model involving learning and earning, otherwise known as an apprenticeship, although the title is not attached. This is something we should be considering also.

The Minister spoke about the linkages between primary, secondary and third levels and further education. He was correct to do that. It is a matter of having cross-sector engagement when it comes to the changes we need to make. A whole-of-government approach is required.

Before this committee reports, can the Minister outline his experience with cross-departmental engagement on the issue of gender equality? He spoke of silos. We do not want people working in silos; we very much want a team push towards where we need to go. We would like to know what the Minister’s experience has been.

Consider the consent framework across third level, which is doing a reasonably good job. We have a zero-tolerance approach, action plans, resources, workshops, committee frameworks and the whole shebang but it appears to me that there is no real mechanism by which progress can be measured. I raised this with the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Justice, last week. It is very important. If we simply measure the reduction in reported assaults or measure progress as the return of a form to be sent in, we are not using an appropriate parameter. There is better work that we could do on that.

With regard to the professional development of academic staff, is diversity and gender training part of the professional development programme? If not, why not? This is one of the areas that the citizens really focused on in their recommendation. We speak of very young children we want to bring forward. While we know about the progress made regarding students and staff, is diversity and gender training included in professional development courses?