We need more women on company boards – Clune

Senator Deirdre Clune is calling for the introduction of gender quotas for state and private company boards. According to a study published this week by the

European Commission . Only 9 per cent of boardroom members are women in some of Ireland ‘s biggest businesses. Viviane Reding said that she was opening a three month long consultation on whether gender quotas for company boards should be introduced. Fine Gael set out in the Programme for Government to ensure the boards of state-owned companies were 40 per cent female. I intend to raise this with Minister Kathleen Lynch to investigate what the status of this legislation is.

A proposal is being drafted that require Europe’s listed companies to reserve at least 40 per cent of their non-executive director board seats for women by 2020 or face fines and other sanctions.

The EU Justice Chief

“Ireland is 19th out of the 27-members of the EU, where the average boardroom is 14 per cent female. This is an abysmal result in a country where there are over 851,000 women at work (CSO figures 2011.)

“In my opinion quotas should be used as a temporary solution to this problem. Ideally companies would voluntarily fill at least 40 per cent of boardroom positions with women.However this is clearly not working judging by the poor level of female participation on boards.

“Gender quotas need to be introduced in order to cultivate a culture in which it is common practice for women to make up half of company and state board members.

“Once the quotas are introduced and the benefits of appointing women become clear, then hopefully the compulsory quotas can become redundant in the future.

“This will encourage women to apply for positions and will give them the opportunity to showcase their varied skills and expertise.

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“I also welcome the Electoral Amendment (Political Funding) Bill 2011 which was passed in the Dail in July. This legislation will halve State funding to parties unless 30 per cent of their candidates at the next general election are female.

“Politicians represent the citizens of Ireland therefore if the gender balance of political representatives reflect the female population then hopefully this mode of thinking would filter through to other areas of society.”