Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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346. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the progress made on the equality objectives of his Department specifically in relation to women. [11077/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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My Department prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer. At the end of January 2022 50.83% of the workforce was male while 49.17% were female. Action 8.5 of the Civil Service Renewal Plan makes a commitment “to improve gender balance at each level by reviewing supports and policies to ensure these are impactful and measurable”. My Department fully supports this commitment.

My Department has proactively managed its gender balance particularly at senior management level where at Assistant Principal (AP) and Principal Officer (PO) levels there was a relatively low representation of females in the past. At the most senior level of my Department 50% of Assistant Secretaries and equivalents are female. However, in January 2021 only 28% of POs and equivalents and 44% of AP and equivalents were female. Following a concerted focus on encouraging greater numbers of women to apply for senior roles in my Department, these levels have improved over the past year and at the end of January 2022 of 42% of POs and equivalent were female and 47% of AP and equivalents were female. My Department is very encouraged by this growth in female participation in these two grades and will continue to monitor gender equality across all grades.

A gender action plan has been developed by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department is committed to advancing the actions set down in the plan, and has developed its own departmental action plan. My Department has also established a senior working group who are looking at ways to improve female participation rate at a senior level. My Department actively supports family friendly initiatives such as flexible working hours, shorter working year and work sharing across all the grades where appropriate. A diversity policy will also be developed in 2022 which will include gender equality measures.