Dr. Aisling Murtagh:

We can look to other sectors for lessons. Our research in the education sector has found a lot of issues around gender equality. We have gender equality plans now within the University of Galway. Most institutions of our type will have such plans in place. It is a requirement to access funding from Horizon Europe that we have a plan and key actions in place across our organisation. That could be applied to the likes of the agricultural representative organisations. However, one has to consider the effectiveness of a voluntary requirement. It might need to be tied into funding or something like that. In our research and policy analysis, we found an example in Italy of legislation being introduced to require private companies to have certain representation on boards. It is something that can be addressed through legal measures, if that needs to happen. There are international examples of where that is starting to be done. If I have the right example in mind, the Italian legislation was targeting private companies and boards more broadly. If something needs to happen in a very strict legal way, there is a range of ways to do that. If we are talking about a very serious issue, that is when we bring in the law.