Civil Service Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 1996: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mrs. A. Doyle)

The purpose of this Bill is to abolish the reinstatement scheme under which women who resigned from the Civil Service on marriage and were subsequently widowed or who could demonstrate that they were not being supported by their husbands could apply for readmission to the service without having to further compete in a competition run by the Civil Service Commission.

In a very real sense the history of the scheme mirrors the story of women in modern Ireland and, indeed, developments in the area of gender equality. In 1932 the Brennan Commission reported that "if a woman recruited to the post married after eight or ten years, the main purpose for which she had been employed entirely fails, and she has, moreover, during that time been blocking the way of a man who could give good value for the service in question.".

With that sort of attitude it was not surprising, therefore, that the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1956, required that women must retire from the Civil Service on marriage. It also provided, however, an exemption where any such women who became widowed could seek to be reinstated into the Civil Service. The presupposition underpinning the Brennan Commission report and the 1956 Act was that a married woman had no role in the workforce.

By the early 1970s the thinking about the role of women in the workplace had moved on and the inherent injustice in a system which compelled them to leave the Civil Service on marriage had been recognised. Richie Ryan, the then Minister for Finance, acting upon the recommendation of the Commission on the Status of Women, took decisive action to bring this particular form of discrimination to an end. The Civil Service (Employment of Married Women) Act, 1973, abolished the requirement of resignation upon marriage and, in fact, broadened out the circumstances under which women who had resigned compulsorily in the past or who were to resign voluntarily on marriage in the future could apply to return to the Civil Service. Now, in addition to widowhood, any woman who resigned to get married and where the marriage did not take place, or where after marriage, her husband was unable to support her, could also apply for reinstatement.

For its time the 1973 legislation was progressive and marked a very real advance for women in employment. It also afforded due recognition to the fact that for those women who opted not to work outside the home after marriage, circumstances might change and the economic support upon which they had depended might not, for any one of a variety of reasons, remain a reality.

The 1973 legislation afforded a route back to economic security for many women who were experiencing difficult financial circumstances. In fact, in the period 1985-95, an average of 29 women per annum qualified for reinstatement under the statutory provisions. I must concur with those speakers in the Lower Chamber who pointed to the many positive aspects of the reinstatement scheme.

Why are we now seeking to repeal a legislative provision, the benefits of which have been so widely recognised? Paradoxically, the answer to that is equality.

Some years ago a woman who had been obliged to leave the Office of the Revenue Commissioners on marriage — before 1973 — took a case to an equality officer claiming that she was being discriminated against on grounds of marital status under the terms of the Employment Equality Act, 1977. Because her husband was still alive, she would have to prove non-support if she wished to be re-employed under the reinstatement scheme, where a widow would simply have to provide simple evidence of her husband's demise if she wished to re-enter the service.

The Labour Court found that the entire scheme was discriminatory in that it conferred on one particular group of people — women who resigned on marriage — the privilege of re-employment in the Civil Service which it denied to other women and to all men and as such was contrary to the equal treatment directive. The court also found that the scheme should be repealed. Legal advice was sought by the Department of Finance at the time and the unambiguous opinion was that the scheme was in breach of the equal treatment directive and should be repealed.

Action on repealing the scheme was delayed pending the outcome of a High Court challenge by the former employee of the Revenue Commissioners to the Labour Court ruling. That challenge was ultimately struck out by consent and we are now in a position to proceed with the repeal. As I mentioned, equality or, more precisely, the equal treatment directive, is the reason I am presenting the case for the abolition of the reinstatement scheme.

I am sure that those who framed and pushed through the Civil Service (Employment of Married Women) Act, 1973, must find it hard to suppress a wry smile when they find that their far seeing enactment, which represented one of the first steps towards dismantling the barriers against full participation by women in the country's public life, is now found to infringe the principle of equality.

I said earlier that the vicissitudes of this scheme reflected the developments in equality and in the role of women in modern Ireland. Today, equality has a more complete meaning than was the case in the past. Contemporary concepts of equality stress equal rights for all rather than focusing on particular groups in society which are deemed to be hard done by. Therefore, the reinstatement scheme, which in its post 1973 manifestation represented a form of positive action for women, must now be ruled out of bounds.

The occasion of the proposed repeal of the reinstatement scheme represents an opportune occasion on which to reflect on the role of women in our Civil Service. I am pleased to note that the recently launched policy statement on the programme of change for the Civil Service, Delivering Better Government, confronts head on the issues surrounding the under representation of women in the upper echelons of the Civil Service and considers the means whereby this imbalance can be overcome.

If anybody still thinks that any organisation, whether in the public or private sector, can operate with optimum efficiency and effectiveness while drawing on the resources of only half of the talent at its disposal, they should try driving a car with two flat tyres — one might chug along for a while, but even the most obdurate will recognise that there is a better way.

Where stands the position of women in the Civil Service in 1996? In absolute terms the figures are still disappointing, with only one woman at departmental secretary level — Ms Margaret Hayes in the Department of Tourism and Trade — and one other woman who is head of an office — Ms Julie O'Neill in the Office of the Tánaiste.

However, we must not be despondent and we must recognise that while current figures may make for less than euphoric reading, we are merely at a stage in a process. If we look at the proportions of women in each of the main middle and senior management grades, we find that the picture is a good deal more healthy than it was in 1972, just before the marriage bar was lifted. At higher executive officer level, 38 per cent of the grade is now composed of women; the corresponding figure in 1972 was 12.4 per cent. Women assistant principal officers now represent 24 per cent; in 1972 they were a mere 4 per cent. Some 13 per cent of all principal officers are now women compared to 0.5 per cent in 1972. The percentage of women assistant secretaries is now 5 per cent, whereas in 1972 women in the combined grades of assistant secretary, deputy secretary and secretary constituted less than 1 per cent. Women are still under represented at management levels in the Civil Service but progress is being continually recorded.

Progress may have been slow, but it has been certain. Few people would accuse me of being a starry eyed optimist; I am long enough at the political game to have had any sense of unrealism knocked out of me. Nevertheless, I am confident enough about the future role of women in the Civil Service to predict that within ten years the situation will have improved so much that many will wonder why there was ever such a fuss about the number of women in the upper echelons of Departments and offices. I base this prediction on a range of positive indicators, the first of which is the presence of role models. Over the years women, unfortunately, have tended not to compete for senior jobs to the same extent as their male counterparts.

To the extent that this shortfall in participation may have been driven by a feeling of "what is the point, a man is certain to get the job anyway", the recent successes of women in securing top jobs, through fair competition with their male counterparts, will serve to dispel any misconceptions and to give confidence to officers to put themselves forward. I hope that, as far as the contemporary Civil Service is concerned, we no longer have to say with Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey that “a woman, especially if she has the misfortune to know anything, should conceal it as well as she can”.

Second, the Civil Service has had in place for some time a series of measures designed to help those who wish to combine the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood with careers. I refer to such initiatives as career breaks, job sharing and flexitime. A crèche for the children of civil servants is fully subscribed and there are plans for further such developments.

The Department of Finance chairs an equality committee which meets once a month and includes representatives from various Civil Service unions and Department officials. Through the aegis of the committee, practical resolutions can be explored together with any difficulties which are being experienced in securing the fuller participation of women in the Civil Service.

It is with mixed feelings that I introduce the Bill. The Government recognises that it must face up to its responsibilities under the equal treatment directive. However, the Government is anxious to mitigate the negative effects of the repeal to the greatest extent possible without introducing in the process any new provisions which might be found to be discriminatory. Accordingly, it is intended to make special provision in the next two series of open clerical assistant and executive officer competitions for the creation of sub-panels which will be constituted entirely of former civil servants without any distinction as to gender or marital status. I hope, and expect, that many of the women who would have availed of the reinstatement scheme will find a route back into the Civil Service through these subpanels. I thank Senators for their interest in the Bill, which I have pleasure in commending to the House.

Mr. Roche

I commend the Minister of State for introducing the Bill. In common with her, I also have mixed feelings about it, because I remember too well the Civil Service marriage bar and the talent which was flushed from the public service. As a student of public administration over the years, I recognised on many occasions the extraordinary inadequacy of the public service in that it does not demographically represent the people. I was struck by the Minister of State's analogy about driving a car with two flat tyres. She probably knows this analogy goes way back to the time of Plato's Republic when he considered the situation of women and the extraordinary arrangements of the day which forced humanity to dispense with half its talent.

One of the extraordinary anomalies of Irish life throughout the first seven decades of this century was the marriage bar which applied to all women in the public service. The strange thing about it was that it was easily and readily accepted as almost a natural form of life. I remember entering the public service in the late 1960s early 1970s when it was regarded as the norm. Looking back on Irish life then, it is extraordinary that there was virtually no debate about the issue. I also recall when Ireland became a member of the EEC in 1973 and there was some timid debate in the Department of Finance about the applicability or otherwise of Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome relating to equal treatment.

If the Minister wants a little interesting history, she should go back over the files in the Department of Finance from that time when one or two officials argued that Article 119, the equality provision, should be taken as directly applicable. However, officials in other Departments, experts in EEC law, said that was not the case, that it was an aspirational arrangement. Soon after Ireland joined the EU, a Belgian air hostess challenged the discrimination which then applied in the airlines on the basis that as a woman she was entitled to the same treatment as male staff. The European Court, in what was a most important and progressive judgement, took the strong view that Article 119 was directly applicable.

The fact that member states failed to apply it by putting the necessary measures in place was disposed of by the court when it argued that as they were directly applicable rights, they applied from day one. From the day Madame Defrenne won her case, marriage bars and bars based on discrimination on gender were wiped away in Europe. It is worth stating this because people often cynically say we got nothing from Europe. This progressive leap forward occurred soon after Ireland joined the EU. As a consequence of the jugdment in that case, the rights of generations of women who suffered discrimination silently were vindicated.

At that time we faced the reality that many women were discriminated against unfairly in the State. Such women lost an opportunity to develop their careers and the public service became peculiarly and particularly male dominated. I was amused when I read the debates at that time and the Brennan report, the authors of which would never be accused of being contaminated by political correctness or even forward thinking. It was a most bizarre document.

Mrs. A. Doyle

They should have been arrested.

Mr. Roche

It was not the only issue on which they should have been arrested. The Brennan Commission also had extraordinary views on ministerial responsibility, which the House recently discussed. It is a most interesting document.

The Minister is right that it is a mark of how far we have moved, but it also provides an opportunity to consider the prejudices which were a reality of Irish life. There is still the extraordinary situation — the Minister mentioned this aspect — that there have been only two women secretaries of Departments in the entire history of the nation. This is wrong and reprehensible and must be addressed. It is interesting that both Secretaries were in the same Department. There is yet to be a woman chief executive of any of the major State-sponsored bodies and this is extraordinary. There has not been a woman manager of any local authority and this is also bizarre. These circumstances require explanation, given that it is 20 years since the marriage bar was lifted.

I remember at the time in the Department of Finance that some of the brightest and the best among the administrative grades were women. There was a great deal of fear among the male ranks that the women would get to the top rapidly. They did not lack any capacity so why have more women not reached senior levels? Why are so few women coming through the top level appointments commission? I accept there has been a massive increase in the number of women assistant principal officers and a worthwhile increase at principal officer level, but the reason so many have not made the transition through the TLAC evades me. I do not know the answer. The talent is there, but there seems to be some ingrained prejudice within the arrangements which takes the view of the Brennan Commission — a view which was incorrect at the time — that women filling top positions are simply taking positions that should more appropriately be available to men. I am sure the Minister will be looking at that.

This short Bill does not address those issues but it does bring them to mind and it suggests to us that on the one hand we have done a lot to redress the imbalance, but on the other we have achieved little enough. The marriage bar, which was lifted 20 years ago, left a number of anomalies that had to be addressed, and this Bill arises because of one of those anomalies was the court case that the Minister of State has adverted to. It repeals the scheme which provided that women who were affected by the marriage bar could be reinstated upon widowhood. That scheme was well meaning and even humane and was regarded as positive at the time it was introduced. It was seen to do something for women who had been discriminated against, particularly where their economic circumstances suffered a catastrophic reversal.

It was generally viewed as a positive measure until 1990, when a married woman took her case to court. I followed that particular case with great interest. It had an impact on some activities in which I was engaged in my day job. It is interesting that again we all accepted in 1973 that what Minister Ryan was doing was right. It was applauded by all sides in both Houses. It is interesting that we could transfer across the border into what really was a prejudice, because again we did not regard married women as that important. They were regarded as a chattel of the husband, to be supported by the husband. The lady in that case did us a service because it brought the issue of prejudice to our minds.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I would remind the Senator that he has two minutes remaining. There is a time limit of ten minutes.

Mr. Roche

I was not aware there was such a flush of speakers. I will do my best to conclude within the two minutes.

Mrs. A. Doyle

If the Senator wants more time, I do not mind.

Mr. Roche

The Minister of State has outlined the facts of the case, but on legal scrutiny it presents the Minister and Government of the day with a conundrum because if we want to fully operate the EU directive on equal treatment, which is a good piece of legislation, we have to do what we are doing here. There are two points that are striking about the episode. First, the events illustrate that a measure which is introduced with universal approval and with the very best of motives can be a real double edged sword. There is a lesson there for us. Second, closing these arrangements would have a very negative impact on some women. The Minister of State made the point that she found herself between a rock and a hard place and I sympathise with her in this predicament. She has in effect to close down what we regarded a humane measure, which was introduced with the very best and highest of motives. Moreover, she has closed down a measure which has given great support to women, as we know from our constituency work. I have progressed three cases under these arrangements and I am sad to see that they are being closed down.

The Minister of State has included some mitigating arrangements in the concluding part of her speech. It is important that we look at alternative approaches to provide some means of readmission to the public service of women who were penalised simply because they were married. I remember in the early 1970s people lived together in the anticipation of overcoming the marriage bar. They "lived in sin" and were rewarded for their ingenuity, whereas people who went in what was regarded as the normal way in Irish life were penalised. The Minister is correct to look at some way of providing readmission for women who were forced to curtail their careers simply because they married and decided to devote themselves to families. I doubt any measure introduced to positively discriminate in favour of those women. Any measure which opens, for example, recruitment without any age limit to women who were affected by the bar could be regarded as mitigating against the equal rights directive.

In supporting this Bill I have the same problems as the Minister of State. It is closing a scheme that was welcome at the time and that did provide a degree of alleviation from hardship. I commend the final point of the Minister of State's statement that an alleviation would be made. She mentioned that it would be at clerical officer level. A lot of very talented women at that level were forced to leave at executive and higher officer level. Would the Minister of State look at the possibility of open recruitment and examinations into the public service in the years ahead making a specific provision, because age bars still exist, that any person who was forced to leave because of existing marriage regulations should automatically be allowed to apply for jobs? It would be few enough in number but it might provide positive discrimination for people who were discriminated against by this nation for generations.

Mr. Burke

I welcome this short Bill. I agree with Senator Roche that the marriage bar was quite readily accepted in those years. The 1973 Act was the first major step to improve the lot of women in the Civil Service.

The Minister stated that when we look at the proportions of women in each of the middle and senior management grades we find that the picture is healthier than it was in 1972 before the marriage bar was lifted. At higher executive level 38 per cent of the grade is composed of women; the corresponding figure in 1972 was 12.4 per cent. Women assistant principal officers now represent 24 per cent of the total; in 1972 there were a mere 4 per cent. 13 per cent of all principal officers are now women compared to 5 per cent in 1972. The percentage of women assistant secretaries is now 5 per cent, whereas in 1972 in the combined grades of assistant secretary, deputy secretary and secretary, women constituted less than 1 per cent. Women are still underrepresented at management level, but there have been significant steps taken over the last number of years. There is work still to be done.

I congratulate Margaret Hayes, who was appointed assistant secretary at the Department of Tourism and Trade last September. She is the second woman to rise to this rank in the history of the State. I also congratulate Brid Kelly, who is from County Mayo. She worked with Mayo County Council for a number of years and has been appointed as county secretary with Cavan County Council. Before that she was secretary to the Western Regional Authority which includes the counties of Mayo, Galway and Roscommon. She is the first lady county secretary in the history of the State. She did not get the job just because she is a woman. She got the job because she was fit for it and well able to do it. She was an excellent employee of Mayo County Council and I have no doubt she will do a marvellous job as county secretary in County Cavan. We have not had a lady county manager yet. It should not be long before we have a female county secretary and I look forward to the day it happens.

I am delighted to see that the Department of Finance chairs an equality committee which meets once a month and includes representatives from the various Civil Service unions together with departmental officials. Practical matters can be explored, together with any difficulties being experienced in securing the fuller participation of women in the Civil Service. Women should not get a job or be appointed to a board because they are women. They should secure positions on the basis of priority. They believe they are as capable as males of doing the job and that they should secure positions on the basis of ability. Females can compete in all areas of the Civil Service with their male colleagues.

Senator Roche referred to job sharing. It is an area that should be looked at closely. Many women believe they still have a major role in the home, so job sharing can play a significant role in retaining women in the workforce and particularly in the Civil Service. The Minister of State is the right person in the right place to expand and explore the option of job sharing. I am delighted this Bill is before the House and I look forward to more strides being made in this area by the Minister of State and the Department.

Ms Honan

I cannot say I welcome this legislation; no woman could welcome it. There is a sad irony at the heart of this Bill. Prior to 1973 thousands of women suffered shameful discrimination in that they were forced to leave the Civil Service when they got married. By any standards, they were treated unjustly.

This Bill denies these women a fast track means of re-entering the Civil Service because such a process would fall foul of the European Union's equal treatment directive. That is ironic because Europe has been good to Irish women. But for the EU, Irish women would not have received equal treatment under social welfare legislation. We have seen the large lump sums they had to be paid as a result of the discrimination. Europe has also been helpful to Irish women in the area of equal pay. It is ironic and wrong that equal treatment legislation is the reason for denying justice to women who were victims of injustice in the past.

The Minister of State's decision to include special subpanels of former civil servants in the next Civil Service Commission examinations for the grades of clerical assistant and clerical officer is welcome. However, these panels will be open to men and women who were not themselves victims of the marriage bar. In view of the vast array of legal and technical expertise available to the Government, I cannot understand why it was not possible to arrive at a formula that would have allowed the victims of negative discrimination in previous years to benefit from positive discrimination now. I doubt that any fair view of society would decide that a particular provision was unlawful when it was established beyond all doubt that the purpose of this was to give preferential treatment to people who were unfairly treated in the past.

Even though the marriage bar in the Civil Service was removed in 1973, women are still unequally represented there and particularly in its higher echelons. Over 20 years after the abolition of the marriage bar we have seen the appointment of the first woman county secretary. There is still no woman county manager in the country and there are no women top executives in many public companies. The Civil Service and State bodies can give example in this regard and the onus is on the Government to address imbalances in the participation of women in the workforce, particularly since there was active discrimination against them in the past.

It upsets me to see this Bill before the House. Senator Burke spoke about the appointment of a woman county secretary in County Cavan and declared that she did not secure the job because she was a woman. That reminded me of my party leader talking about the time she was appointed auditor of the Historical Society in Trinity. She applied to become a member of one of the clubs on St. Stephen's Green which automatically offered membership to the auditors of that society. She was not offered membership so she wrote and asked whether that was because she was a woman. Their reply stated that it was because she was not a man. Such discrimination upsets me greatly.

It is important to look at the current position of women in the Civil Service. Much has changed since 1973. The number of women in the service has grown and their participation in the higher echelons is much greater. However, women are not fulfilling their true potential in the Civil Service and we must ask why. Earlier this year the Progressive Democrats published a comprehensive policy document on the reform of the public service. It paid particular attention to the position of women in the Civil Service. We looked at the representation of women in the ten general service grades, ranging from clerical assistant to departmental secretary, as of the end of December 1995. There are 16,000 civil servants in these grades, which account for more than half the total number in the Civil Service, and two-thirds of them were women. The majority of women were concentrated in the two most junior grades, clerical assistant and clerical officer. More than 70 per cent of all women civil servants work in these grades.

The situation is very different in the senior grades. There are about 1,400 civil servants in the general grades from assistant principal officer up and fewer than 20 per cent of these positions are held by women. That is not a fair representation 23 years after the marriage bar was lifted. Of the 450 positions ranging from principal officer upwards, which are the senior management grades, just over 10 per cent are held by women. Women predominate in the four lowest grades in the Civil Service while men predominate in the six highest grades. That is very wrong. It shows that despite the ending of the marriage bar in 1973 and despite anti-discrimination legislation and increased female participation in the workforce, women are still seriously under represented at the highest levels of our Civil Service. Obviously some form of glass ceiling operates.

It is important that women are fairly represented in the upper echelons of the Civil Service not only from the point of view of equity but also from the point of view of efficiency. The Civil Service must be managed by the best people and we cannot hope to find such people if half of the population is under represented in the pool from which senior appointments are made. The reasons for this degree of female under representation at the top are difficult to ascertain because the phenomenon is not confined to the Civil Service. It also occurs in the private sector, local government and many other areas. National teaching and the nursing profession, for example, are almost totally dominated by women; yet in both cases the trade unions representing these workers are led by men. During the negotiations about the nurses' dispute the main negotiators for all the nurses' unions were men. That is extraordinary for a profession that is almost totally dominated by women. I cannot accept that women were not capable of representing the views and interests of these largely female professions.

If we are trying to address the lack of women in the upper echelons in the Civil Service we must look closely at the administrative officer grade because this is where the key graduate intake takes place. People who enter at this grade are on the fast track for promotion into the key management positions of assistant principal and higher grades. Given that the Civil Service is effectively a closed shop, the composition of the administrative officer cohort is a crucial determinant of the future composition of the top ranks of the service.

I am aware that other people are promoted to higher positions, but the post of administrative officer is the key grade. It is interesting to note that at the end of last year only 27 of the 99 administrative officers in the service were women. I cannot understand why this is the case because the administrative officer competition is open to all graduates of several fields with the required academic standard and is not confined to any discipline. If we consider the school and university systems and the academic achievements of women, it would appear that the administrative officer cohort should be divided equally between males and females. This is not the case. The Department or the Civil Service Commission should investigate the reason women are under represented at this grade. Perhaps there is an in-built bias against them in the examination process as at present constituted. If they do not enter this grade on the basis of equality, we will never succeed in obtaining representation for women at the top level in the Civil Service.

I am disappointed with this legislation. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State will make special provisions in the next series of examinations for women who were discriminated against in the past. I urge her to continue in this regard, but I am not happy with the legislation.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Before calling Senator O'Sullivan I must point out that Senator Henry is anxious to make a contribution to the debate. The order of the House is that the debate will conclude by 3 p.m. and I ask Members to bear this in mind.

Ms O'Sullivan

I will only use five minutes of my time. Like Senator Honan, I am not pleased with this legislation. I believe the Minister of State is of the opinion that this Bill must be enacted as a result of a decision of the Labour Court, the EU equality directive and other equality legislation.

In my view, the women involved already suffered enough discrimination before the removal of the marriage bar from the Civil Service. It is a pity that we must dispense with the granting of compensation to such women. The female Members of the Oireachtas are not pleased with this development but we must accept it nevertheless. We will not shoot the messenger.

Mrs. A. Doyle

Thank you.

Ms O'Sullivan

I appreciate that every effort was made and a number of options considered to deal with this issue. The next series of clerical assistant and executive officer competitions will include a sub-panel of former civil servants, male and female. We cannot do much about the past but we must do what we can about the present and the future.

The present situation relating to numbers of women in the Civil Service and local government is far from satisfactory. The Joint Committee on Women's Rights has published a document dealing with women in management in local administration, which mirrors the pattern that can be seen in the national situation. As other Members stated, there are no female county managers or assistant city or county managers, there are two female county secretaries and one female finance officer. A great number of women are represented further down the line. It is interesting to note that most of the interview panels for the positions to which I referred were entirely male. This area must be investigated immediately and it is being taken on board in the Strategic Management Initiative.

With regard to the past gender composition of interview boards, there were no women on the interview boards for county manager in 1992. Of the 14 competitions for county and city managers and assistant county and city managers held in 1994-1995, only one woman served on the interview board. I accept that this is changing but in the recent past women were faced with interview boards that were entirely male in their composition. That issue is directly dealt with in the Strategic Management Initiative and there will be gender balance in the future. The sooner this happens the better.

We must acknowledge that, from a consideration of this document and other evidence, women did not always pursue promotion.

Mrs. A. Doyle

They still do not pursue it.

Ms O'Sullivan

Perhaps there is a need for women to change their attitudes to ensure that they put themselves forward for promotion. The reasons for their not doing so relate to conditioning, etc. This is similar to attempting to address educational advantage at third level where one must begin at the earliest level to try to bring about the kind of changes which will eventually lead to equal balance at senior levels.

The Civil Service uses guidelines for promotion and the Strategic Management Initiative has the capacity to change things dramatically with regard to the process of climbing the promotion ladder. Initiative and other qualities will be rewarded in future, whereas in the past women would not have been helped towards gaining promotion. Linear progression in the Civil Service has favoured men in the past. On the graph provided on page 48 of the second report on the Strategic Management Initiative, men and women are denoted by means of blue and orange ink, respectively. This graph illustrates the current situation and shows that many women are employed in the lower grades while many men are employed at more senior levels. According to the figures for December 1995 there were 13,800 women in the Civil Service, 9,000 of whom were serving in the clerical grades. The numbers in the inspectorate grade were only 5.9 per cent female and over 94 per cent male.

I agree with Senator Honan that other areas of Irish life have probably an even worse performance than the Civil Service, local government and politics. The Senator referred to banks and companies, although small companies tend to have more women at the top level of management. There is a long way to go because a recent newspaper article stated that the top earners in our society are practically all men. The problem is not confined to the Civil Service; it exists on a wider scale. Through the Strategic Management Initiative and the actions of the Minister of State, I hope there will be changes for the better in the near future.

Dr. Henry

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for being so brisk and concise in her contribution. She is quite right to state that this problem is not confined to the Civil Service. The Minister of State spoke from the heart when she stated that she is between a rock and a hard place with this legislation and it is unfortunate that the Bill must be enacted. Senator O'Sullivan also pointed out that local government management is the same, if not worse, than the Civil Service.

Various excuses have been offered as to why women are not progressing within the Civil Service or local government management. Ms Evelyn McMahon compiled research on behalf of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights and discovered that the fact that women could not transfer to other counties militated against them. She also discovered that some women in local government management refused to transfer outside the area where they began work and had progressed up the ladder to county manager level. Excuses are made about the fact that, for social reasons, women find it more difficult to travel.

Another interesting point in the Joint Committee on Women's Rights report is that when the local government executive wanted to point out where women were doing well, it directed attention to the numbers of women who are county librarians. That is the case because the profession of county librarian is predominantly female. Different criteria must be brought into operation at interview boards and I share the view that there should be a far better gender balance on these boards. People must be asked to explain the way they dealt with gender issues. This is extremely important.

This has often arisen in my profession for consultants within the health services — employees of the State. Surely, we are not going to appoint temporary consultants of a lesser grade than permanent consultants to deal with patients in the health service? Fifteen per cent of permanent consultants are women; but over 50 per cent of temporary consultants are women, which is a huge difference. Permanent consultants are appointed by interview boards. I question the validity of interview boards which are comprised entirely of one sex. It is a sorry sight to see women, who comprise 50 per cent of medical graduates — and more in some medical schools — doing extremely well at the lower level of the health service but doing less well as they gradually go up the rungs of the service.

A friend of mine who was made a consultant in the 1960s before the marriage bar was removed, married when she was about 50 years old. She did not resign from her job and asked her husband what she should say when she went back to work. He told her to say nothing and wait until someone accused her of being a married woman. She said nothing and practised as a consultant in this city until she retired. I was delighted for her sake she did.

This is an international problem. It was interesting to see the lengths to which women in Northern Ireland had to go to ensure there were at least some women elected to the forum. I can tell the women Members of the Oireachtas that they were delighted with and amazed by the amount of support they got from women here. It is terrible to have so few people representing 50 per cent of the electorate.

To use the Northern buzz phrase "parity of esteem", I am dismayed the funding for the women's archive is being withdrawn. That sends a message about how little consideration is given to women's history in this State. I hope the Minister of State will urge the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht to reverse that decision. The archive made a most worthwhile contribution, as was demonstrated by its splendid exhibition last year on women and the Famine, which toured the country.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mrs. A. Doyle)

I thank Senators for their contributions and understanding of the Bill. I have already outlined how we had little option but to go ahead with this legislation. The Labour Court ruled that the reinstatement scheme is discriminatory and contrary to the principle of equal treatment and should be repealed. We have also obtained unequivocal legal advice from the Attorney General's Office that the scheme is in breach of the equal treatment directive and that we are obliged under the terms of the directive to repeal it.

The repeal of this facility, whereby certain women who had resigned on marriage could re-enter the Civil Service without having to formally compete in Civil Service Commission open competitions, will, I appreciate, not be welcomed by such women who find themselves in difficult economic circumstances. I have particular sympathy with the women who were obliged to leave the Civil Service on marriage. We all find it extremely difficult today to understand the mind set which prevailed at that time, particularly when it seems to have been accepted with little protest.

I assure Members of the House the Government was anxious to preserve the scheme for the women who had no choice but to resign under the marriage bar. We did everything to try to facilitate that. However, we received unambiguous legal advice that the equal treatment directive does not permit positive discrimination to compensate for past discrimination. Discrimination which took place prior to the enactment of the directive is not relevant to its provisions today.

I assure Members that the Government investigated all available options which might have mitigated the effects of the repeal to some degree, at least. We were anxious to take whatever meaningful steps were open to us to facilitate those women who left the Civil Service on marriage and now wish to return, but without introducing any new provisions which would be found to be discriminatory. As I said earlier, it has been decided in the context of repealing the reinstatement scheme that the next two series of clerical assistant and executive officer competitions will include special sub-panels composed solely of former civil servants, but will not differentiate on grounds of gender or marital status. I hope this initiative will go some way towards facilitating the re-entry to the Civil Service of women who resigned on marriage, or had to resign for family reasons since.

The former marriage bar is not the only factor with a bearing on the current under representation of women at senior level in the Civil Service. I share the concerns of the many Senators who referred to this point. Women tend to be slower at putting themselves forward for promotion competitions. I have decided we have to investigate the reasons for this. I have asked the women managers' network in the Civil Service to apply their experience to determining why women are so slow to put themselves forward for competitions.

We need to develop appropriate strategies to overcome the obvious glass ceilings which exist. It is no longer because of the marriage bar. Margaret Hayes, the secretary of the Department of Tourism and Trade, entered the Civil Service after 1973. If one can do it, more can. There are obviously other constraints there which we have not researched properly and which I intend to pursue. We devoted quite a portion of Delivering Better Government, as Senator O'Sullivan said, to the issue of gender. I feel very strongly we need to look at this.

As I said earlier, the policy statement on the programme of change confronts the issue surrounding the under representation of women in the upper levels of the Civil Service. We are considering all possible means whereby we can correct the imbalance. It is accepted today that the promotion of effective equality policies confers benefits on the organisation and they are an essential feature of effective human resource management. To have an effective and efficient Civil Service we must make the best use of all the talent available to us. I am confident that over the coming years we will see a major improvement in the representation of women at middle and senior management level.

Concepts of equality have developed and widened dramatically over the last 20 years. Actions taken today must not be seen to favour one gender over the other or to give preference on the basis of marital status. Equality must share with its parent virtue justice a complete blindness to such distinctions. We must be proactive in promoting fuller involvement by women in the Civil Service. Within the parameters imposed by law, whether Irish or European, this Government is determined to pursue policies which will encourage greater participation rates among women in the most senior ranks of the public service.

It is not just a question of equity, but an issue of hard-headed economics. We do not have to justify it on the basis of equity alone. If we see human resources as the most important asset of any organisation, as I do, it stands to reason that an organisation should optimise the benefit of that asset. Under representation of women in the higher grades of the Civil Service represents the economic loss of a valuable resource.

I hope women who have applied for reinstatement, and are eligible on age grounds, will compete for places on the special sub-panels to which I referred. Many of these women have much to contribute. Their previous experience of the workplace has been rounded by their subsequent experiences of family life. Modern organisations — and the Civil Service is no exception — require flexibility as never before. They want people who are more interested in making things happen rather than adhering rigidly to procedure. They want people who value instinct and intuition, as well as analysis and rationality.

Irishman Charles Handy, who has an international reputation in the area of management redesign, observed that:

Women over the generations have had to make things happen and get things done, with or without formal authority. They have had to handle endless variety in managing the home, taking decisions on inadequate information, backing hunch and judgment. They have had, in turns, to be disciplinarian and loving mother. Not all women do these things well by any means but few men have had that much practice. Organisations need talented women in their core jobs, therefore, not only for reasons of social fairness, important though that is, but because many of those women will have the kind of attitudes that the new flat, flexible organisations need.

We are working towards a more flexible, flatter customer oriented Civil Service. We need to avail of all the talent at our disposal, regardless of gender or marital status, in pursuit of this necessary change.

Question put and agreed to.