Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 February 2022
10. Deputy Emer Higgins asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on the recommendation of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality that gender quota legislation should be enacted to require private companies to have at least 40% gender balance on their boards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7023/22]
View answerWhat are the Minister's views on the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality recommendation to provide for a gender quota of 40% in all private companies?
Gender balance at board and senior leadership levels in Irish companies is a policy priority for me and it is an issue I have been engaged in for several years. The policy approach to date has focused on driving culture change in businesses, including by setting voluntary targets for large companies and assisting them to meet them.
To help with this, I launched Balance for Better Business in 2018 to promote increased participation by women on the boards and senior leadership teams of companies. Since then, there has been a steady and sizeable increase in the share of women on the largest listed company boards, from a very low figure of 18% in 2018 to 31% in September 2021. This is a significant achievement in a short space of time.
I thank the Deputy for the work she and others have put into the Irish Corporate Governance (Gender Balance) Bill 2021. In January I met with the National Women’s Council of Ireland to discuss the Bill and some other issues.
Voluntary targets appear to be working and are helping to promote cultural and strategic change at the heart of businesses. Still, I accept that voluntary targets might not be working quickly enough and do not deal with companies that are not engaging at all. There are still several companies which have no women members on their boards at all. Each year gender balance is not achieved is a year too many. Therefore, I welcome the legislation that the Deputy put forward. It could act as an accelerator in the area and I look forward to having the Deputy’s Bill debated in the House in due course.
I thank the Minister for that response. His commitment to making change in this area and to further advancing women in leadership roles is reassuring. As he noted, I have brought forward my own Bill in this area supported by the National Women's Council of Ireland.
The ambition behind it is to achieve better balance in boardrooms through quotas. I am really keen to see this progressed and see our policy on gender representation start to catch up with our European neighbours.
As the Tánaiste said, Balance for Better Business does incredible work in this area. It is really encouraging to see us making progress in certain areas but the level of change we need is just not going to happen fast enough on the route we are currently on. It is a target for Balance for Better Business that no listed companies should have all-male boards but as the Tánaiste referred to himself, that is still the case and in fact there are five all-male boards in Ireland currently. I would love to hear how the Tánaiste feels we as a Government could change this culture of male dominance quickly.
I thank the Deputy. She has put her finger on it. In many ways, the approach we have been following up until now is producing good results in the round. State boards are already ahead of the 40% target and publicly-listed companies are at over 30% and heading for 40%. However, that does not deal with the hold-outs that still have all-male boards or maybe just one or two women on their boards. I have no doubt we will get better decisions made in organisations that have proper balance and diversity on their boards. The legislation the Deputy has put forward is really useful in that regard. We are not going to oppose it when it comes to the Chamber and I look forward to the debate on it. There is an EU directive in this space that is coming down the tracks as well so we will have to see how it ties in with that. I am also interested in the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee that is looking at the recommendation from the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality.
I thank the Tánaiste. That is really encouraging to hear. That will be a success if the Government chooses to support this Bill and it becomes law. The Tánaiste has highlighted the business case for this and it is important we talk about that too. All the research tells us gender balance is better for business. Irish businesses need this as much as Irish society. Diversity of thought around the leadership table or a boardroom table produces better decisions. It is better for governance, risk and for the whole decision-making process. McKinsey did a report on this in 2020. It found companies whose boards are in the top quartile of gender diversity are 28% more likely to outperform their peers financially. That research speaks for itself and we need to act and follow the example of other European neighbours by enacting gender quotas as quickly as possible.
The Deputy makes a very strong case in that regard. As I am sure she will agree, it is not just about the boards but also the senior leadership teams and senior executive teams. At the moment, of companies listed on the ISEQ exchange, 34 do not have any women on their leadership teams. They may have women on the board but not in full-time roles. We have to examine that and act on that area as well. We are now down to five all-male boards. That is down from eight in 2020. I certainly encourage those companies to refresh their boards and not to wait for legislation whereby we make them do it. They should do it anyway and do it quickly.
