Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Acting Chairman, Senator Currie, who has taken the Chair on this auspicious day - International Women's Day. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit Collins and I thank him for joining us here today.

Today, in Ireland, the actual amount of female representation in senior positions at third level is shocking to many. We need change and this has been proven by: the Equality Tribunal in 2014; the 2016 Higher Education Authority, HEA, review of gender and equality; the Gender Action Plan 2018-2020; and the gender equality task force. Across our seven universities only one out of all is a woman because, in September 2020, Professor Kerstin Mey was appointed as interim president for the University of Limerick.

Many of our institutes of technology are on their way to technological university status. Two out of nine presidents or provosts are women: Dr. Orla Flynn is the president of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology; and Dr. Patricia Mulcahy is president of the Institute of Technology Carlow.

I am also happy to note that all three institutes under the Connacht-Ulster Alliance technological university have applied for the bronze Athena SWAN award and the results are due at the end of March. The Athena SWAN committee is an international body for gender equality, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, areas in higher education institutes. There is also a recent publication by Professor Pat O'Connor, University of Limerick, and Dr. Gemma Irvine, vice-president for equality and diversity at Maynooth University. Their publication points to the fact that an Athena SWAN award, particularly at silver level, is bound to be associated with a higher ranking on the Quacquarelli Symonds, QS, world university rankings system. However, an Athena SWAN award alone will not increase the number of women in professorships. The former Minister, Mary Mitchell-O'Connor, was proactive and set up the senior academic leadership initiative, SALI, that has 45 new female professorships, of which 20 were allocated in 2019 and 15 more are due to be announced in May with two being allocated to the National University of Ireland, Galway, NUIG, and one to the Athlone Institute of Technology. GMIT has applied for two posts in this year's round.How on earth are we to reach the target of 40% of professorships being held by females by 2024 when only 26% are so held right now? We have the women, the talent and the leadership; we now need the change. I request that higher education institutions' performance in equality be linked to and noted in the Higher Education Authority block grant and that there be recruitment and support for funding agencies targeted at women in leadership.