THE Progressive Democrats' leader, Ms Mary Harney, has called for reform of Civil Service recruitment procedures because of, the low representation of women at senior level in the public service.
She also called for the National Women's Council and the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed to be represented in the social partnership, which is due to begin negotiations on the next national agreement in the autumn.
Ms Harney was addressing the annual conference of the Women's Political Association in Dublin, where she told delegates that, although females made up 50 per cent of university graduates, only 27 per cent of recruits at Civil Service graduate entry level were women.
At the lower grades, 80.7 per cent of clerical assistants and 78.7 per cent of clerical officers were women, while they made up just 12.6 per cent of principal officers and 5.6 per cent of assistant secretaries, and there was only one female department secretary.
Interview boards for recruitment and promotion should have a greater female component than at present. She suggested the development of a "mentoring" system, whereby successful women would help to develop the skills and confidence of their more junior colleagues.
Women were also under represented at senior level in the trade union movement, in the media, in business and in many other sectors, she maintained.
Ms Harney told the conference that five farming organisations were represented in the social partnership programme, but women were not, and nor was the INOU, the only organisation concerned solely with unemployment.
Earlier, Prof Eunice McCarthy, professor of social and organisational psychology at UCD, spoke of the under representation of women in co educational schools, where 45 per cent of the teachers were female, yet only 6 per cent were principals. This compared poorly with single sex secondary schools, where 55 per cent of the principals were women.
The chairwoman of the WPA, Ms Kathryn Byrne, said that it was "particularly telling" that women were still referred to as a minority when they constituted 51 per cent of the population of Ireland.
The Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal, Ms Liz McManus, said that the "radical target" of achieving a gender balance on State boards, with women constituting 40 per cent, would be reached within the lifetime of the present Government.
