Vol. 564 No. 1
272 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the response his Department is intending to make to the campaign of the National Women's Council towards encouraging the greater involvement of women in the Government structures and agencies involved in public life. [8211/03]
I assume that the Deputy is referring to the recently launched political equality strategy document and the photographic exhibition Put More Women in the Picture. As regards the strategy document the Government is committed to improving the position of women in decision-making and in public life.
The photographic exhibition was funded by the NDP gender equality unit of my Department. A tour of the exhibition to local authorities around Ireland during 2003 is also being organised by the unit. The unit will, in addition give talks to the county development boards of counties in which the exhibition is being displayed to underline the importance of increasing women's participation in decision-making bodies.
In relation to women in politics the equality for women measure, which is funded under the national development plan, is supporting projects involving three political parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin to develop initiatives to increase the number of female electoral candidates and representatives. A grant of approximately €254,000 has been awarded among the parties to develop their separate project proposals over a three year period. In addition, a representative of the Labour Party is on the management committee of a project on decision-making which is being led by Trinity College, Dublin, and funded under the equality for women measure.
In relation to the position of women on state boards, the Government has set a minimum target of 40% representation of both women and men. Our commitment to achieving this target has been set out in An Agreed Programme for Government and the new partnership agreement, Sustaining Progress. Significant progress has been made towards achieving the target with ministerial nominations reaching the 40% target in recent quarters. Nevertheless, there is still an overall imbalance in representation which we are committed to eliminating.
In July 2002, the Minister of State with special responsibility for equality, Deputy O'Dea, contacted all Ministers with a request to review the gender balance of the State boards under the aegis of his or her Department and to take measures to redress the gender imbalances where the 40% target has not been reached. To ensure progress, the Minister of State intends bringing a six-monthly report to the Government on the gender composition of boards for each Department broken down between boards newly appointed during that period and boards already in existence. The first progress report is being prepared and will be submitted to Government shortly.
