Years of Austerity Leads to Lack of Women in Senior Civil Service Positions

Ireland ranked 25 out of 28 EU countries for the number of women in leading civil service roles, at 29.9pc. The average for the EU is 38.2pc. New research reveals huge disparity in gender equality among top officials across the G20 and EU, but the overall trend is positive.

First-placed Canada is deserving of special praise. Having occupied the top spot since Global Government Forum began researching this subject in 2013, Canada now has 46.4% women leaders. However, Australia’s 3.2 point growth over the year puts it on course to overtake Canada, which added just 0.3 points over the year. South Africa comes in third, with 41.1%

In Ireland the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform chief human resources officer David Cagney, told researchers from the Global Government Forum project that due to the crash and subsequent recruitment bans here there was very little movement of any kind within the Irish civil services.

According to Mr Cagney the service in the future is hoping to attract more women applicants for advertised roles. To help achieve this the service will be focusing on the language in which competitions are described along with skill set requirements. This is to remove any possible impediments to women applying for senior positions.