Ms Jacqui McCrum:

I will return to the issue of gender balance. What Senator Ardagh referred to was probably within my own management board. I wish to put on record because it is quite an important change that I am the first female Secretary General of the Department of Defence in the history of the State. I am very proud and privileged to have this position. There has been a change within the management board over the three years I have been in situ. I only realised it yesterday when I looked at it that there is a 50:50 split on my management board between male and female. When I put myself into the mix, it is 57% but that is probably quite unique even within Departments and the Civil Service. It is just the way it happened. It just transpired that way.

Along with the Chief of Staff, we established the Defence Women's Network in 2022. It is a thriving network that is supported by a committee that is civil and military. It meets very regularly to carry out events across the country and generate that sense of camaraderie within the lower numbers that are there. We need to rebuild confidence for females in the organisation. Many initiatives are under way and only time will tell if they will have an impact. We will work extremely hard to make sure they do. We will benchmark to make sure they do happen. Some of the small things in terms of just accepting females within the organisation that have come through from the Defence Women's Network may seem very small but they do say women are welcome. We have introduced sports clothing for females such as an allowance for sports bras. Female hygiene products are now available free of charge across barracks, the Department and ships. Maternity healthcare is another significant initiative that has been introduced. Private medical care for maternity will be an attraction and, hopefully, a retention piece. They are small pieces that build into the narrative of what we want to do.

There is a civilian cohort in the Department composed of 430 people who mainly work in the Defence Forces.

In fact, I only prepared this statistic in preparation for this committee meeting. In the Department, 33% of our staff are male and 67% are female. In the civilians, the respective figures are 81% and 19%. When the two are combined, 58% of all civilian personnel working within the defence sector are male and 42% are female, so it is almost 50:50 on that civilian side, which is an interesting factor.

With regard to the Women of Honour, in another part, we engage with all of the stakeholders involved with that particular issue. We continue to do so and we will learn from those issues as they come through. We have learned from them. We have put actions in place and we will continue to learn from them.