Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As no other colleagues have further questions, I will ask a few concluding questions before we let our guests go. I am conscious we have been in session since 9 a.m. and we do not want to take up too much more of their time. I thank them very much for their engagement. They will have noted from the range of questions asked and the comments from colleagues on the committee how strongly focused we are on ensuring implementation of these recommendations from the Citizens’ Assembly. They cover quite a wide range even on this section on gender, stereotypes and education. They have assisted us greatly in providing us with such insights into what is happening across higher education. As we spoke about outside earlier, I am conscious initiatives at third level to enhance greater equality for women have had a better impact than in the Oireachtas where we still see a serious gender imbalance. Ms Adebowale mentioned that figure at the start and, as I said, only 23% of our TDs are women. A report I did in 2009 for the justice committee identified five Cs, the barriers to women’s progression in politics, namely, lack of cash, lack of confidence, an old boys' culture, lack of childcare and candidate selection procedures. Those first four are common across different sectors and certainly in third level. We have tried to tackle the candidate selection procedures through gender quota legislation, which has had some positive impact. However, I am conscious at third level, where I also know the situation well, real progresses have been made on tackling those other four Cs. Certainly, my own work with Athena SWAN in the law school in Trinity was a real eye-opener as to the sorts of ways in which an unconscious bias persists even where we think we have a fairly progressive workplace.

I wish to ask about a few issues that came up from my work with Athena SWAN and that arose also out of the Micheline Sheehy Skeffington case, which were highlighted with Mary Mitchell O’Connor’s initiative on the women-only professorships, as they are known, the senior academic leadership initiative, SALI. These issues around lack of supports for women in academia come to the fore at a crucial point in careers, the mid-way point in women's 30s when they are much more likely than men to take time to go on maternity leave or parental leave to carry out essential childbearing and child-rearing and then they see careers impacted as a result, particularly because of a lack of capacity to carry out the necessary research, which Senator Higgins touched on, vital in order to get promotions. Some of what myself and Athena SWAN heard were issues around a lack of supports for returners, those returning to work after maternity or parental leave. I would love to hear our guests' comments on that and on what initiatives specifically can be taken to support very much gendered initiatives to assist women returning from maternity or parental leave or a career break. What supports can be offered in the universities and in the technological universities and how can we lead on this? This arose as such a crucial issue, along with all the others around curriculum and culture that we spoke about. I would love to hear a little more on that before we close. I might hear first from Dr. Kenneally, Dr. Brennan and Professor Scott.