Serious question here: Why does Emer Higgins’ new bill, which would see companies forced to reserve 40% of the seats on their boards for women, stop at just forty per cent? If you believe, as she clearly does, in the value of legislatively mandated equal representation for the two genders, then why not simply go the whole hog, and enshrine equality in the law? 50/50 male/female, after all, could be legislated for just as easily as 60/40 male/female. So why on earth would you not just do that?
Anyway, all these new jobs going on boards: It’s got to be good news for Katharine Zappone, right?
In Ireland, only 22% of company directors are women. This needs to change.
That’s why, today, @EmerHigginsTD is launching the Irish Corporate Governance Bill 2021, which will require 40% of board members be women.
For more: https://t.co/3zUOlp0Kdw pic.twitter.com/tJNMC6c1vL
— Fine Gael (@FineGael) September 8, 2021
There’s some irony, too, in that this proposal for increased gender equality on boards is being promoted by the National Women’s Council of Ireland, whose board lacks even a single male member. Gender equality, as ever, for thee, but not for me. Indeed, if gender equality really matters, then why does this bill apply only to women? Surely a law which mandates gender equality should do just that, and state that boards must have a mix of both genders? But that would, of course, have the unfortunate side effect of meaning that the National Women’s Council should have men on their board, and, the truth is, we simply couldn’t have anything like that happening.
And what of the cost to companies and organisations, imposed by this bill? After all, the average salary for a board member on an ISEQ listed company in Ireland, according to the Irish Times, was €63,000 in 2017. There is no evidence that that level of remuneration has fallen. To get to 40% female representation, companies will either have to make men redundant, or expand the size of their boards dramatically, to get to the 40% figure. For example, a board which has ten members at the moment – eight men and two women – may need to add four women to reach the 40% threshold. At the average salary for a board member, that means a company or organisation would incur additional annual costs of €240,000 per annum.
In the alternative, of course, they could simply fire two men to make space: But that would incur redundancy costs. And also, potentially, the spectre of unfair dismissal: After all, the people concerned would be losing their positions for the crime of being the owners of a penis and testicles. Not misconduct, not bringing an organisation into disrepute, or anything like that. Perhaps it might be cheaper, all considered, just to have some of the male members of a board avail of the gender recognition act, and re-classify themselves as female. Which would, by the way, be perfectly legal.
It is also not as if there are no alternatives to this legislation, which employs a stick instead of a carrot. Why not, for example, simply offer monetary concessions to companies who reach a target of gender equality, if it matters so much to Government? This is, of course, the model employed in the political field: The laws which incentivise political parties to have a percentage of female candidates do not make it mandatory. Instead, they offer more funding to parties which reach the desired target. But that’s a law which affects politicians, of course, so it is naturally more lenient than one which impacts the private sector. But in keeping with that precedent, wouldn’t it be perfectly feasible, and within the Government’s power, to offer additional grants to companies who reach a target for gender equality?
None of that, of course, has been thought through. The objective of this bill is not really to change anything in the positive for most Irish women: Working class women will not really benefit, except as token members on state-funded NGO boards. It will not improve educational opportunities, or enhance the level of childcare available in the state. In terms of the practical problems which afflict most Irish women, this bill does nothing.
What it does do, however, is allow Emer Higgins and her party to prance and preen on social media, blissfully ignorant of the costs they are imposing on companies, for almost no societal benefit. This is a bill targeted at middle class Instagram influencers, not the people in Ireland who actually need support. Like most of what this Government does, it is about serving the ideological agenda of the you-go-girl media and NGO class, and has nothing in it for the rest of us.