Louise O'Reilly
Question:1. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he is aware of the specific barriers that women founders of technology companies face in accessing State supports. [44353/23]
View answerThursday, 12 October 2023
Questions (1)
Oral answers (6 contributions)
Is the Minister aware of the specific barriers women founders of technology companies face in accessing State supports? Will he engage with the sector directly and with the stakeholders to address these issues? The issues are many and varied, but a direct engagement would be incredibly beneficial.
I thank Deputy O’Reilly for raising this issue.
Increased female participation in our workforce is vital for our economy and, in the interests of our society, we need to ensure women can realise their full entrepreneurial potential.
This is an issue on which the Government is focused. In fact, the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, as late as last week, met an organisation called TechFoundHer. I have also met a number of organisations on this issue to discuss how to address some of the barriers that women technology - tech - founders face. These include under-representation, access to existing networks, access to capital, and mentorship and role models.
While these are not issues unique to Ireland, my Department, through Enterprise Ireland, has been working to promote greater gender diversity in the technology sector and improve access to supports for women founders. Over the past decade, Enterprise Ireland has focused on increasing the number of women founding high potential start-ups and much progress has been made on this. In 2011, for example, only 7% of Enterprise Ireland-backed high potential start-ups at first seed stage included women founders. By putting a spotlight on this untapped potential and providing capability and funding supports specifically targeting women founders, by 2022 the share of Enterprise Ireland high potential start-ups with women founders has more than trebled to 37%.
Gender is built into the reporting requirements for all seed and venture capital funds that are supported by Enterprise Ireland now. I am pleased to report that 70% of the seed and venture capital funds that Enterprise Ireland supported have women at partner-investment manager level, which is a huge change from where we were ten years ago. Enterprise Ireland partners with the Irish Venture Capital Association for an annual series of events to bring female founders together on the topic of raising capital and linking to venture capital funders through workshops and networking events. Furthermore, programmes such as Going for Growth, New Frontiers and Leadership 4 Growth are available to women across Ireland and have significant results in women starting and scaling businesses across all sectors.
I understood the figure to be 27%. The Minister states it is 37%, but it does not matter. It is still not 51%. There we are. Women make up 51% of the population. I acknowledge the progress but the Minister should also acknowledge that there is a huge amount of work left to be done.
I have spoken with stakeholders in the area. Some of this, unfortunately, is only anecdotal evidence but I accept the women's bona fides on this, as I am sure the Minister will as well, when they speak about the barriers they face. The unfortunate fact is that much of this discussion is not data driven. Does the Department have the statistics for start-ups with women-only founder teams? It is not enough to have a woman on the board or to have a woman in the room. We are talking about women founders and women leaders in this area. They have told me directly that they have faced barriers similar to those that many women face, but this is an area where there should be a real focus.
Would the Minister give a commitment that the Department will collate and publish the data on the number of successful applicants and the share of public funding for mixed founder teams, for women-only teams and for men-only teams? It is essential we look at the number and range of applications and extrapolate where women are leading, not only where women are involved. These are women founders and they are telling me directly they are facing barriers. We cannot know the extent of that until the data is collated, and I would appreciate that commitment this morning.
I have no problem trying to collate more data and publishing it. The motivation here is probably the same on this side of the House as on the Deputy's. I have met a number of groups that are specifically focused on providing more angel funding, for example, through female angel funders, and more venture capital, VC, for women founders. I have met a number of women in business groups to discuss how we might do that.
Clearly, although we have made significant improvements over the past decade or so, there is still a lot of work to do. I do not want to suggest that we are where we want to be in this space; we are not. We still hear a lot of frustration from women entrepreneurs on a range of levels, but particularly around access to funding. That is something we need to address.
In relation to the Deputy's request, I will talk to our teams about what information we have and how we can improve that information flow. We are happy to make any of that available. There is no problem.
With regard to the barriers that women founders of tech companies face in accessing State support, I refer to something that is happening in California. The Governor, Mr. Gavin Newsom, has signed into law Senate Bill 54 which will require venture capital firms in the state to annually report the diversity of the founders they are backing. It is very specific. It is looking directly at the founders.
I welcome the fact the Minister of State has engaged with TechFoundHer. I would encourage him to keep that engagement going to listen because, in the absence of hard data, anecdotal evidence is incredibly compelling.
Would the Minister give consideration to legislation of the same nature? It is a sad day if the United States are leading on an issue like this. Would the Minister give consideration to similar legislation that would almost mandate diversity within the sector because, I believe, the talent and enthusiasm is there? The women are there but we know all of the barriers - cannot see, cannot be, etc. I believe it requires a State intervention to break down some of those barriers.
I am not sure what the Deputy means by saying it is a sad day when the US is leading. The US leads in many areas. We try to lead in many areas too.
Clearly, this is an area where we have made significant improvements but we are not where we need to be. That is why we need to encourage more young girls as well as women into tech and tech-based subjects through education. There are a number of programmes we support, from iWish to other innovation programmes that get young girls thinking at a much earlier stage, and indeed their parents, about the kind of careers they may pursue.
The reality is the future of the Irish economy is digital and tech based. We want to ensure our education system is fit for purpose in that regard and that girls and women are not disadvantaged in their career choices because of the subjects they may choose at a much earlier age. We need to ensure the agencies of the State, in particular Enterprise Ireland and local enterprise offices, are doing everything they can to promote the role of women in the tech industry. There is a lot of talent there and I have met many female founders myself. We need to make sure they get equal access to funding and that we publish data which highlight problems so that we can solve them.