International Women's Day: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Norma Foley (FF), Kerry

I begin by welcoming everyone here today on what is an extremely significant day for me in my role as Minister with responsibility for gender equality, for my colleagues across the Government, and for everybody here in the Seanad also.
This time last year, it was with great pride that I addressed the Chamber to mark International Women's Day as the newly appointed Minister for Children, Disability and Equality. Today, I welcome the opportunity to address the House again on the subject of gender equality, and to update Senators on our progress in this area over the past year.
Recently, we welcomed a significant improvement in Ireland's rankings within the EU on gender equality, according to the official EU gender equality index. We now rank sixth in the EU, moving up from our previous position of ninth place in 2024. This reflects progress on women's and girls' equality across a number of areas, including health, education and business.
There have also been incredible achievements across the board insofar as we have seen Irish women excel in so many different disciplines and fields, including - to name just a few - sport, science, business, media and the arts. I say this with the incredible Jessie Buckley, a fellow Kerry woman, in mind, as we all wish her the very best of luck at the Oscars in the coming weeks.
Equality between women and men has been a core principle of public policy and law in this country for a long time. Successive Governments have worked to remove barriers to women's full participation and to address the inequalities we still face. Ireland today is a very different place for women and girls. In so many ways it is a better, fairer place than it was in our mothers' and certainly in our grandmothers' time. That is something we should both acknowledge and celebrate.
I am particularly proud to have launched our new National Strategy for Women and Girls 2025-2030 last November. This strategy has a single, simple, but crucial vision: an Ireland where all women and girls can thrive in a gender-equal society. l am so very grateful to the inspirational guest speakers we had at the launch on that day: disability rights activist, Joanne O'Riordan; Irish rugby international, Lynne Cantwell; Sheenagh Rowland and Hope Omoregie from the National Youth Assembly; and from my own home town of Tralee, Ciara, Saoirse and Laoise Murphy, the winners of last year's BT Young Scientist competition. They are a really impressive group of young women. However, we know there is much more we need to do across all measures of gender equality, and we should not shy away from that. The strategy sets out a broad range of objectives aimed at reducing inequalities between women and men. This whole-of-government plan aims to level the playing field for women and girls of all ages and backgrounds by eliminating all forms of discrimination against them and building on the progress made under its predecessor strategy.
Our strategy acknowledges that the challenges women and girls face are diverse and commits to supporting women in overcoming these and achieving their full potential, placing them at the heart of Government action. The Department worked with a variety of stakeholders, including the National Youth Assembly and the National Women's Council, to ensure that the strategy reflects the priorities of women and girls at all stages of life in a modern and ever-changing Irish society.
The strategy will be implemented by two action plans. The first action plan will cover the period 2026 to 2028. It is nearing completion and I hope to present it to Government shortly. Work on this action plan is being overseen by an interdepartmental committee to ensure a holistic, whole-of-government approach. Our work to implement the strategy will have a particular focus on supporting women and girls over their entire life. That is one reason why a youth perspective was prioritised in the development of the strategy. A special national youth assembly on gender equality was convened while the strategy was in development. This assembly was specifically designed to provide young people with an opportunity to discuss how gender inequality affects their lives, explore solutions, and make recommendations that were reflected in the final strategy.
We recognise that women and girls are diverse, and while this diversity brings strength, it also brings a host of different needs that require different policy responses. Disabled women in particular must be supported to ensure that they are included in employment opportunities and decision-making, and that they can access opportunities just like everyone else.
There are also strong links between this new strategy and our other equality strategies, including the national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy 2024-2028, launched in July 2024, and the national LGBTIQ+ inclusion strategy, launched in June 2025.
The Government has also significantly increased family leave entitlements, recognising the importance of supporting parents to reconcile care for their children with their participation in employment. First 5, the whole-of-government strategy for babies, young children and their families 2019-2028, committed to extend entitlements to paid leave incrementally over the course of the strategy so that by 2028 parents in Ireland would have access to a range of family leaves for the first year of their child's life.
Since then, parent’s leave and benefit for fathers and mothers was increased from seven to nine weeks in August 2024. The combined durations of maternity, paternity and parent’s leave and benefit now equate to 46 weeks’ paid leave for a two-parent family. Mothers also have an entitlement to 16 weeks of additional maternity leave, which is unpaid.
The programme for Government commits to a number of actions that support women and their families, including the examination of the extension of parent’s leave. We are also working on an ongoing basis to address specific needs that arise for parents. Since November 2024, for instance, female employees can postpone their maternity leave if they need ongoing treatment for a serious health condition. This is an example of the kind of practical measure that can make a significant difference to women.
The Department has also led efforts and implemented a range of measures to support women in the workforce. It is widely known that business does better when there is diversity among senior decision-makers. Ireland has fully transposed the EU directive on gender balance on corporate boards to ensure that listed companies achieve a more gender-balanced spread in their board members. Ireland has already made significant progress in these areas. According to the 2025 annual report of Balance for Better Business, women now represent 42% of board members in Irish stock exchange companies.
We have also made great strides in our efforts to narrow the gender pay gap, which is a crucial measure of inequality in this domain. Measuring this gap and seeing who is most affected by it will help show us what we must do to close it. Gender pay gap reporting now applies to all employers with over 50 staff. It is mandatory for these employers to publish their gender pay gap reports on their own websites, but not all of them are doing this. Many employers do not realise the difference until it is staring back at them in the form of a gender pay gap percentage. I am committed to bringing this information into the open to inform the public, employers and, indeed, Government policy. I am going to bring forward legislation to make it mandatory for relevant employers to upload their reports to a centralised reporting database, that is, the gender pay gap portal. This portal will encourage more employers to meet their legal obligation and, more importantly, drive meaningful action to eliminate the gender pay gap. This is just one important example of the action we have taken to support women and girls at every stage of their lives.
Our commitment to gender equality in the workplace does not stop there. This year, the Department will have a focus on transposing the pay transparency directive. Under this directive, EU companies will be required to share information about how much they pay women and men for work of equal value and to take corrective action if their gender pay gap exceeds 5%. It also provides for compensation for victims of pay discrimination and penalties including fines for non-compliance. This directive is crucial to empower workers, and especially women, to enforce their right to equal pay through a set of binding measures on pay transparency. It will strengthen the transparency of pay systems, improve public understanding of the relevant legal concepts and enhance enforcement of the rights and obligations relating to equal pay. The Government is fully committed to full implementation of the pay transparency directive. It is vital work that must be progressed that will directly benefit women and girls and advance gender equality both in the workplace and in wider society.
I am also pleased to inform Senators that Ireland’s first national equality data strategy was recently approved by Government and will be published shortly. The national equality data strategy 2026-31 has been developed by the Central Statistics Office and the Department in partnership with a dedicated working group drawn from across Government and civil society. The strategy requires all Government Departments to make a commitment to collect, use or disseminate equality data and to develop the organisational capacity to fulfil this commitment. It will allow us to use equality data to develop sound and inclusive evidence-informed policies to improve outcomes for all. Our efforts will align with the launch of the European Commission’s gender equality strategy 2026-30, which is due to be published today, 4 March.
As Ireland prepares to host the EU Presidency this year, I am committed to ensuring that gender equality and equality itself are at the forefront of our agenda. Our Government’s commitment to adopting a systematic approach to achieve gender equality is evidenced by the progress I discussed here earlier. It is equally important to recognise that despite these positive achievements, there is much work still to be done. I am working to address the barriers preventing women’s full participation in society, and the first of the two upcoming action plans under the new national strategy for women and girls, overseen by a dedicated interdepartmental committee, will absolutely drive this work forward.
Women’s equality is a goal we can all share and all work for together. In the words of Malala Yousafzai, the world’s youngest ever Nobel laureate and a tireless champion for the rights of girls and women in education, "We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.” I look forward to working with all of Senators here in this regard. Half of us being held back is not acceptable. We need to work together so that we can all succeed together.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04