Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I understood the figure to be 27%. The Minister states it is 37%, but it does not matter. It is still not 51%. There we are. Women make up 51% of the population. I acknowledge the progress but the Minister should also acknowledge that there is a huge amount of work left to be done.

I have spoken with stakeholders in the area. Some of this, unfortunately, is only anecdotal evidence but I accept the women's bona fides on this, as I am sure the Minister will as well, when they speak about the barriers they face. The unfortunate fact is that much of this discussion is not data driven. Does the Department have the statistics for start-ups with women-only founder teams? It is not enough to have a woman on the board or to have a woman in the room. We are talking about women founders and women leaders in this area. They have told me directly that they have faced barriers similar to those that many women face, but this is an area where there should be a real focus.

Would the Minister give a commitment that the Department will collate and publish the data on the number of successful applicants and the share of public funding for mixed founder teams, for women-only teams and for men-only teams? It is essential we look at the number and range of applications and extrapolate where women are leading, not only where women are involved. These are women founders and they are telling me directly they are facing barriers. We cannot know the extent of that until the data is collated, and I would appreciate that commitment this morning.

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