Mr. Niall Cody:

A total of 63% of Revenue staff are female while 55% of principal officers are female. In 2011, 8% of principal officers were female. I started smiling when the Deputy started talking about coming from left field and what it turned out to be because I smiled when I saw that article as well. We do not engage in discrimination on any grounds. Our recruitment and competitions are all subject to scrutiny by the Public Appointments Service. The post of principal officer referred to by the Deputy would have been filled by interdepartmental open competition and internal competition. The organisation is increasingly reflecting the actual gender breakdown so it is quite a positive story. I am disappointed that Deputy Catherine Murphy left before this because for the past five years in this committee, we have always had a chat with her and Deputy Connolly about gender. I would always have to remind them that my predecessor was also a woman. To put it in perspective, we had an assistant principal conference that was reflected in the article where all the assistant principals would have been here before Covid at which that claim was made to me. I answered from the stage that there was no discrimination. We have published the gender pay gap on our website in anticipation of changes that are coming with legislation for Revenue. It is a really interesting read.