Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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4. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide a gender analysis of the various grades of staff in his Department and the Department of Finance at grades (details supplied); the existing gender pay gap; the way in which he plans to address same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29228/18]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I ask the Minister what is he doing to address the gender gap in his Department. The Civil Service has not only a gender pay gap but a gender promotion gap. I ask the Minister what proposals he has to provide for women's equality in all positions in the Department, which is dominated by men except at the lower grades.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The gender breakdown of staff in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Finance is as follows. There is a tabular format for all this information being shared with Deputy Bruton separately but the following are the key points.

The percentage of female staff in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform stands at just over 54%. In the Department of Finance this figure is just below 43%. The average is, therefore, 49%.

There is a clear majority of female staff at temporary clerical officer, clerical officer and executive officer, EO, grades in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform equal to 70.9% of the total number employed at these grades. In the Department of Finance, the equivalent figure is 62% or 57 out of a total of 91.

The percentage of women filling the senior management roles of assistant principal and principal officer, PO, in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform stands at 47%. This is above average levels seen across the Civil Service as set out in the recent ESRI report. The corresponding figure for the Department of Finance is 39%.

There are nine positions at very senior level within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Four of these are filled by women, which is also above the Civil Service average. The seven equivalent positions in the Department of Finance are all currently occupied by men.

As to what I am doing about it, in the Civil Service Renewal Plan, which was published by me in January 2017, I announced a range of initiatives to help improve gender balance in the Civil Service, particularly at senior level. In particular, a target of 50:50 gender balance in new appointments at senior levels is now in place. While the merit based approach of "best person for the job" continues to apply, in cases where candidates who compete for Top Level Appointments Committee, TLAC, positions are of equal merit, then priority would be given to the female candidate where they are under-represented on the management board of the Department or office in question.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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While I appreciate the Minister's sentiments, 100 years after women got the vote one must say when one looks at the Department of Finance that the old cliché, "male, stale and pale" comes immediately to mind. Both Secretaries General of the Department - admirable persons, I am sure, in their own right - are men. As the Minister stated, when one adds up the totality of staff in the Department, the men occupy a disproportionate number of the senior positions while women are congregated in the lower pay scales and grades.

The issue with this is the Department of Finance, if we are to have it reflect the lived experience of people in Ireland, needs to have, both in its leadership and at all levels of the Department, a roughly proportionate equality between men and women. I know what it is like to sit in a Cabinet where only four persons around the table of approximately 18 persons are women. The Minister should believe me when I say that for every extra gain one makes in a women, one changes the conversation and the lived experience of those who are making the decisions.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The points the Deputy has made on the composition of leadership within my two Departments do not reflect the reality of where we are at assistant principal and principal officer level. In the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform it is 44%. It is lower in the Department of Finance at 39%, which I acknowledge and I have shared the figures with the Deputy. It is not where it needs to be in the Department of Finance and this is why I have brought in the change on provisions for senior posts via the top level appointments committee, TLAC, because I agree with the Deputy that the leadership of our Departments needs to reflect the diversity and strength of our country. In one of my Departments, namely, the Department of Finance, we clearly have a lot of progress to make in that regard at a senior level. That is not the case in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, but where the Deputy wants to get to and where I want to get to on this is the same place.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Taking the Department of Finance as being the leadership Department of the public service, as opposed to all Civil Service positions, would the Minister agree that women who have professional careers in the public service at all grades are paying a penalty in this day and age in their ability to get promotion, status and the pay that comes with promotion for taking time out to have children? They are penalised by public service norms on promotion, largely as a consequence of taking time out at a certain point in their career to have children.

It should be borne in mind that if somebody has two or three children and ends up taking three to six years of maternity and parental leave in a 40 year career, that is a relatively small amount of time, and as we know, many men take time out to take a career break or pursue studies. Our system has to play catch up in the proper reflection of women at different grades.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree with the Deputy. Within any organisation, the amount of time that might be taken for maternity leave, or to a far lesser extent for paternity leave, is a sliver of an entire working life. Both of my Departments and other Departments from what I have seen are working hard to ensure that the necessary working arrangements are in place to ensure that nobody is penalised in any way for taking maternity leave and that we have the right flexible working arrangements in place to recognise family life and all of the challenges that come with looking after children. I am determined to make sure that continues to happen while I am here and we will look at new ways of doing it better. That is why we made the change across the Civil Service on TLAC appointments because I was determined to ensure that the diversity at a senior level within our Civil Service was addressed and improved.

The Deputy has identified the Department of Finance for the reasons she has said. While I have said that where we are at a senior level is unacceptable to me, I believe that will change and expect it to change over time in the diversity we have there. If I go to where we are at principal officer and assistant principal officer level, I see signs of change happening there and I expect and want to see that happening at these senior levels in the Department.