Promotion prospects for women in the civil service were described as disgraceful by the Taoiseach Mr Ahern yesterday.
At the launch of a Civil Service Gender Equality Policy, he said that rather than the aspirations and lip service of the past there would now be a better deal for women which was long overdue.
He said that research had shown a "serious, persistent" under-representation of women in the higher management grades and an equally significant over-representation of women in the clerical grades.
"While those findings are very troubling in themselves, the fact that the numbers have not changed in the last 10 years is something of a disgrace.
"The research highlights the stubborn obstacles we need to address if we are to succeed," said Mr Ahern.
He said that a simple but key measure of progress would come about when flexible working arrangements were no longer seen as an administrative burden.
They should instead be seen as "a means of maintaining the pool of talent from which Departments can draw at all levels as a matter of course".
The research pointed to a number of factors restricting promotion opportunities for women, particularly at higher management grades, including family responsibilities.
In June last year women formed 69 per cent of total civil service staff of 31,800, from clerical officer to higher executive officer.
However, from assistant principal to secretary-general, women formed only 23 per cent of the total.
At the highest management levels, women were particularly under-represented. There were only 34 women (17 per cent) at deputy secretary and assistant secretary level, while there are 3 women (9 per cent) at secretary or secretary-general level.
The report indentified the under-representation of women in the assistant principal grade as a particular obstacle to the advancement of women to senior management levels within the service.
Mr Ahern said one of the main aims was that one third of assistant principal posts would be filled by women in 2005.
It showed that the percentage of women in the assistant principal grade increased by only 1 per cent to 24 per cent in the ten years up to 1997.
During the same period, the number of women in the principal officer grade only increased from 5 per cent to 12 per cent.
He said women do not participate in sufficient numbers in competitions for promotion.
At management levels the pool of women available to be promoted to the most senior positions was "very small indeed".
"It is difficult for women in the Civil Service, as in other professions, to balance the growing responsibilities of work with those of the other areas of their lives."
The new policy, he said, would put an end to the culture that was unfair to women, was bad for the public service and bad for the country as a whole.
The Gender Equality Management Group, chaired by Ms Josephine Feehily, formulated the new policy. The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, explained that the new equality objectives must now be included in Government Departments' statements of strategy.
The Government has decided that the new round of statements being prepared by each Department must include specific objectives.