Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael)
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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.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I dtús báire, cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I welcome the Minister of State to the House again. We have previously had very constructive engagements with the Minister, Deputy Harris, and I appreciate the Minister giving me a hearing on those occasions. I am glad to have the opportunity to address the Minister of State on International Women's Day and thank Senator Dolan for her gracious gesture in sharing time with me. It is good to see acts of collegiality and solidarity between female Members of the Oireachtas who are, after all, a minority.

Regarding the Commencement matter, it is important to allow everybody to flourish and to give people the opportunity to flourish in their fields, regardless of their sex or gender. I support the principles of equality of opportunity and egalitarianism. If women aspire to pursue a career in academia or research, they should be encouraged and supported in doing so. There should be no barriers to women entering the world of academia and research and no glass ceilings. I would, however, voice a note of caution about going too far down the road of social engineering, positive discrimination, gender quotas and equality of outcome. Surely, we want talent to be selected on merit. It would be awful to have people regarded as a mere token, as simply being there to fill a quota or as having been hired to allow an employer to signal virtue or for a person to be given a post because there is a financial incentive for the employer or institution in question. I acknowledge the brilliant work of women in teaching and research at every level in every setting.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senators Dolan and Keogan for raising this important issue on International Women's Day. While we have made significant progress in recent years, we have a lot more to do. Higher education legislation requires institutions to promote gender balance among students and staff and the Higher Education Authority, HEA, to promote the attainment of equality of opportunity.

The 2016 report of the expert group on gender equality and the 2018 gender equality task force report encompass a suite of initiatives to bring about sustainable organisational change and to empower a culture of gender equality at all levels in all our institutions among all staff, including academic and professional staff, management and support staff. These initiatives would lead to a more equal system in which a person’s gender was not a barrier to career progression. The HEA monitors institutional performance and is included as a key focus in the performance framework.

One of the recommendations in the 2018 gender equality task force’s action plan was that a Centre of Excellence for Gender Equality be established. This was established in the HEA in 2019 and now also covers diversity and inclusion. The centre ensures an acceleration towards gender equality and is a key enabler in ensuring sustainable change by providing centralised support for the institutions, facilitating the sharing of good practice and funding innovative organisational and cultural change initiatives nationally.

In 2019, the senior academic leadership initiative was launched by the Department to assist in accelerating gender balance at senior levels through the award of 45 gender-targeted senior academic leadership posts over three years.

In 2020, an annual gender equality enhancement fund was established by the HEA centre of excellence to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration as a means to achieve national transformation. The centre uses this fund to encourage innovative approaches to addressing gender inequality across the institutions.

The Athena SWAN charter is a framework used across the globe to support and transform gender equality in higher education and research. Engagement with the charter is a key pillar of our national strategy for gender equality in higher education. The charter was launched in Ireland in 2015 with a specific remit to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in higher education. As of the end of 2020, a total of 56 Athena SWAN bronze awards were held by Irish higher education institutions including 14 awards for institutions and 42 for departments.The Athena SWAN award achievement is a requirement for research funding eligibility from the three main research funding agencies, the Irish Research Council, IRC, the Health Research Board, HRB, and Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. The HEA sets and monitors timelines within which higher education institutes, HEIs, should apply for and attain Athena SWAN accreditation. In light of these requirements, HEIs stand to lose access to research funding from the IRC, HRB and SFI if they do not achieve Athena SWAN awards within the set timeframe.

The IRC is working with the HEA and other research funders on issues of gender equality and the implementation of the gender action plan 2018 to 2020. The council was among the first research funders globally to gender-blind applicants to its research funding programmes. For assessment panels, the IRC targets gender parity in the composition of such panels, at minimum of no less than 40% of each gender. The council monitors gender balance in applications and awards annually. For awards made in 2019 there was gender parity on applications, with female awardees comprising close to 55% of the total.

Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael)
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The Athena SWAN charter is one thing but it is not enough. We need to ensure that women come through. Although there is 26% of professorships, only 30% of applications came from women. In other words, we need to ensure there is funding available for starting investigators, PhDs, post doctorates and increasing funding at IRC and SFI level. We need to make sure that the centres of excellence being funded bring through women principal investigators, PIs, as well and not solely excellence. We know excellence exists. Look, for example, at the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor Louise Richardson. She is in the top five in the world. Is the Minister of State saying that we cannot have the same number of professorships in Ireland? I do not think so. The excellence is there and we need to support it.

We need to make sure there is a targeted plan of teaching buy out to allow women to focus on research. We need to make sure we support them in terms their peer review publications, their h-index and their participation in EU funding programmes such as Horizon 2020. To become a professor, one needs to ensure one can drawdown on Exchequer and non-Exchequer funding. We need to make sure that we support those women to achieve that target. Science Foundation Ireland recently stated in its statement of strategy that 35% of its award holders would be female. That is a target we need to achieve.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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In 2016, Science Foundation Ireland launched the SFI gender strategy which provided a comprehensive framework to streamline gender initiatives across all SFIs funding programmes, with the overarching aim of improving the gender balance among its award holders. SFI sets a target for gender representation in its portfolio. The original target was 25% female award holders. This target was revised upwards to 30% in 2017 after the original target was reached. As a result, SFI has seen an increase in female award holders in its portfolio of awards from 21% in 2015 to 29% in 2019.

I thank the Senators for raising the issues. The Minister, Deputy Harris, and I take them on board and take them very seriously. We have, of course, much done in this area but there is more to do. I also take on board the points raised by both Senators in that we want to avoid tokenism and that people achieve progression by virtue of ability. We should not get into a gender balancing exercise purely for that purpose alone. People should get there on merit also.

Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael)
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It may take another 20 years to do it.