Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Some time ago, we discussed the issue of women on boards. I understand that the Taoiseach has committed to increasing gradually the numbers of women on boards, particularly in areas like finance. That is all to the good. How long will we have to wait in those areas, including with reference to the Department of Finance and the Department of the Taoiseach?

Ireland is now a very different country in terms of the most recent census compared with what it was 20 or 30 years ago. We now have people from diverse backgrounds all over the world who have made their homes in Ireland and whose children have grown up in Ireland, many of whom, especially in our constituency, are now past the teenage stage, have qualified from college and have achieved very significantly. Notwithstanding the contribution of immigrants to Ireland, when we look at the composition of the boards, we see that not only are there relatively few women and even fewer female chairpersons of boards, ethnic diversity is almost entirely missing.

The Minister for Finance told me the other day about the new holistic approach taken by his Department to policy issues, which I welcome. What I want to know is whether the Taoiseach would be conscious of the issue given that he represents Dublin West where about 30% of the population is either not born in Ireland or has parents who were not born in Ireland. The Taoiseach knows that there are significant numbers of young people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds in our secondary schools, yet when it comes to public positions like boards, they see very few people like them. What is the Taoiseach going to do to address this?

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