Niamh Smyth
Question:203. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Transport the progress made on the equality objectives of his Department specifically in relation to women. [11084/22]
View answerTuesday, 1 March 2022
Questions (203)
Written answers
I thank the deputy for the opportunity to set out, in brief, some of the achievements made by my department in the area of equality and inclusion, specifically in relation to women, over recent times.
Intersectional Policy Initiatives
My Department worked closely with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) on the development and implementation of its Public Sector Duty Assessment and Action Plan. This is an ongoing duty that my department monitors, reviews, and develops continuously. My department also participates on several equality interdepartmental groups including the National Strategy for Women & Girls (NSWG).
Equality Budgeting
In 2021, the Department of Transport introduced a dedicated equality budgeting spending line in the budget alongside dedicated performance indicators in keeping with the current Programme for Government commitment to expand the Equality Budgeting Programme across government departments and agencies. By examining budgeting and expenditure from an equality perspective, the Department is better placed to identify gaps or bias in expenditure that can cause or maintain disadvantage, or fail to promote equal access to transport and related services.
Gender Balance on State Boards
Across the 18 State Boards under the remit of the Department of Transport, the gender balance is currently 68% male and 32% female. I actively encourage applications from as wide and diverse a pool of candidates as possible and am acutely aware of the need to meet a 40% gender target. I am committed to promoting diversity and inclusion on the State Boards under my remit, and to widen access to a broader range of experiences, perspectives, and skillsets. Ahead of International Women’s Day, my department is hosting a webinar this week to promote the benefits of gender balance, diversity, and inclusion on its State Boards. Both I and my colleague, Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton will be participating in this event.
Public Transport Services
Transport is often seen as gender-neutral, providing benefit to all equally. However, a growing body of international research highlights that this is not the case. Women and men can have different needs, constraints, and expectations for using transport. In 2020, Transport Infrastructure Ireland carried out a women in travel survey – ‘Travelling in a Woman’s Shoes’. The report sheds light on the disparities and realities that women face every day in order to understand the different mobility patterns and needs of both women and men.
Capturing gender information in transport surveys is key to understanding the needs of everyone and ensuring everyone feels safe while travelling. The department has utilised CSO and Census data to analyse the age and gender of public transport users in the development of its Sustainability Mobility Policy, which is due to be launched shortly.
Accessible public transport provides greater opportunities for all members of society, and especially those who may be in vulnerable situations - women, persons with disabilities, older people - to access essential services, such as employment, education, training, and health services.
My department delivers its commitments towards making public transport accessible for all via its Accessibility Work Programme which provides the framework for prioritising projects and programmes to progressively make public transport accessible. The department’s Accessibility Consultative Committee (ACC) monitors progress on the Work Programme. The ACC gender balance is currently 75% female and 25% male.
In addition to the above, the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility plan, which is a major national public transport initiative developed by the National Transport Authority (NTA) to increase public transport connectivity, particularly for people living outside the major cities and towns, will significantly increase both the number of routes and the frequency of existing services right across the country.
In the context of services to rural areas, Local Link public transport services prioritise the reduction of social exclusion across all demographics. As well as combatting rural isolation, the vast majority of Local Link services are door-to-door community type services, which enable women in rural areas to access work, education and training services.
Cycling
In 2019, a Bike Life Dublin Metropolitan Area report was produced by Sustrans in partnership with the National Transport Authority (NTA) with gender being a key part of the data collected and presented in the report. There is evidence from the census that there is a significant gender-gap with regard to those cycling, with only one in every 250 girls cycling to school in the country. The Green Schools initiative funded by the NTA, working with teenage girls, has developed #andshecyclescampaign to look at addressing this issue.
Employment Equality in the Transport Sector
The need to increase the number of women employed in the transport sector is something that my department and its agencies are very aware of. Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and Bus Eireann all share an ongoing commitment to maintaining a diverse, inclusive and balanced workforce, and have a number of regular initiatives in this regard
Regarding diversity and inclusion in the aviation and maritime sectors, the Department has committed to supporting research by Dublin City University on building gender balance within the aviation industry. To support greater inclusion of women in the maritime sector, the National Maritime College Ireland (NMCI), which is Ireland’s designated centre for the education and training of personnel for the Merchant Marine, organises annual events to coincide with International Women’s Day designed to encourage women to apply for the various maritime course offered by NMCI. My Department is the regulatory authority for approving NMCI courses.
As the Deputy will see from the foregoing, my Department is fully committed to making progress on equality objectives for women.