Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

On behalf of Deputy McManus, I express support for Deputy Ó Caoláin's position on gender balance, a concept the Labour Party also proposes to introduce in amendments Nos. 6 and 22, one of which relates to the registration boards while the other relates to the council. My party's position on gender balance has been well known for a long time.

I hope the Minister of State will accept the amendments, particularly given that other Ministers have accepted similar amendments seeking gender balance in other legislation. It is particularly important that we ensure an appropriate balance between men and women on the registration boards. I note from section 9(3)(b)(iv) that nine members of the board will be representative of the interests of the general public, while the other three members will represent other interests. Ensuring that at least 40% of members will be women and 40% men should, therefore, present no logistical difficulties.

When my Limerick East constituency colleague, the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, served as Minister of State with responsibility for equality, he suggested that gender balance on boards could be made a statutory requirement if it was not achieved voluntarily by Government Ministers and Departments. Unfortunately, he did not implement this suggestion even though the statistics show that a large majority of members of boards and councils established by Ministers do not have a reasonable gender balance. I assume the Minister will have no difficulty providing for gender balance in the legislation given that it is supposed to be Government policy.

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