To mark International Women's Day, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has said that diversity, inclusion and the fair and equal treatment of all are among his Department’s "core values".

Minister McConalogue said: "I am committed to promoting and maintaining an inclusive and diverse workplace for all of our employees and the diversity, equality and inclusion policy launched in 2018 reinforces our core values in these areas.

"There has been a strong focus on gender balance in my Department over the past decade and more, with a gender balance steering group in place.

"There have been continuous improvements in gender balance as a result and we welcome the increased representation of women at management levels across all areas of our organisation in recent years.”

Pay gap

Senator Pippa Hackett, Minister of State for biodiversity and land use, said that her department monitors its gender pay gap and has seen a narrowing of this pay gap from 20.5% in 2013 to 13.2% in 2020.

"In addition, we as a Department are fully committed to achieving the Government target of 40% gender balance on the boards of our 12 State bodies.”

The Department of Agriculture regularly encourages its staff to participate in Women in Agriculture and Women in STEM events, Minister of State Martin Heydon who is responsible for research and development said.

He said that in the last 12 months there has been a significant increase in the number of female-led research projects funded by his Department, adding: "I am confident that this welcome trend will continue.”

Minister McConalogue added that the agri-food strategy, Food Vision 2030, recognises the importance of gender balance to the long-term sustainable future for primary producers and includes actions to promote and improve gender balance at all levels, including at senior management and board level.

"It also includes a commitment to hold a national dialogue on women in agriculture."

Measures on gender equality in the CAP Strategic Plan were proposed by Ireland. They include:

  • Increased rate of grant aid to 60% for women aged 41-66 years under TAMS investments.
  • Knowledge Transfer Programme - women-only knowledge transfer groups.
  • European Innovation Partnerships - potential for a call for proposals to incentivise women’s participation in agriculture.
  • Improved recording, collection and reporting on gender data across all CAP schemes.
  • The Minister said that all CAP interventions will be developed with a gender-aware perspective to ensure there are no inherent barriers to women’s participation.

    "We live in an ever-changing society and on International Women’s Day we continue to look at more interventions, initiatives and schemes to ensure that we support diversity and there is full equality for all," he said.