Attempts to create gender equality within the Civil Service have failed, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told an audience of overwhelmingly male senior civil servants at Dublin Castle yesterday. He was speaking at the start of the latest phase of the Strategic Management Initiative.
Mr Ahern left his script to recall how he had introduced the Equal Opportunities Policy and Guidelines for the Civil Service in 1986, when he was minister for labour. "I remember saying at the time how dramatically they would change the Civil Service," he said. "But I'm back to say I was wrong."
While initiatives in areas such as career breaks and job-sharing had helped, and there had been some move towards gender balance up to executive officer grade, Mr Ahern said, there had been little progress higher up the scale. "There is a particular bottleneck at AP [assistant principal officer] grade, where the percentage [of women] has only increased by 1 per cent, from only 23 per cent to 24 per cent, in the 10 years from 1987 to 1997."
To deal with the problem, the Government was proposing to introduce "a new equality policy which will be drafted by a high-level management equality group, and which will be discussed with the Civil Service unions". Mr Ahern said that there would also be "a programme of affirmative action in the areas of recruitment, placement/mobility, training and development, promotion, work and family responsibilities, language and sexual harassment, and policy delivery".
He said departments and offices would have to set "increasingly specific equality goals to be achieved over a stated period of time". Speaking to journalists, Mr Ahern said he agreed with the British approach of setting targets for the number of women employed in the higher grades of the Civil Service.
However, when the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, addressed the meeting in Dublin Castle, he specifically ruled out "positive discrimination" as a means of tackling gender imbalance in his Department. Extra resources would be deployed in the equality area but they would be used to initiate "supporting measures in such areas as training initiatives, staff placement and mobility".
The deputy general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, Ms Rosaleen Glacken, whose union represents the clerical grades where women comprise 80 per cent of personnel, welcomed Mr Ahern's approach to the problem. She called on the Government to follow the British example, where the government had set a target of doubling the proportion of senior civil service jobs held by women to 35 per cent by 2005.
A recent survey showed that while women made up 80 per cent of clerical officers in the Irish Civil Service and 50 per cent of executive officers, they only comprised 24 per cent of assistant principal officers, 12 per cent of principal officers, 10 per cent of assistant secretaries and 5 per cent of secretaries-general.
Mr Ahern also said recruitment had become a problem for the Civil Service in the tightening labour market. But he dismissed predictions that the system faced collapse. He said Ireland had the youngest workforce in the OECD and annual economic growth rates of at least 4.5 per cent would be needed to provide jobs for the 30,000 new entrants to the labour market each year.
Mr McCreevy said the Civil Service Commission was taking "a more assertive approach to recruitment". It would also be introducing targeted competitions aimed at recruiting people to specific departments and jobs.
The Minister for Finance also said the Freedom of Information Act would be extended to new areas next year, including FAS, the IDA, RTE and the universities.