Speech by Minister for Children, Disability and Equality Norma Foley at the launch of the National Strategy for Women and Girls 2025-2030

*Check against delivery*

A Dhaoine Uaisle,

Cuirim fáilte romhaibh ar fad. Tá an-áthas orm an Straitéis Náisiúnta do Mhná agus do Chailíní a sheoladh inniu.

Is onóir mhór domsa mar aire bheith anseo ar an ocáid tabhtach seo.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed a great pleasure for me to welcome you all here today.

May I extend a particularly warm welcome to Carlien Scheele, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality. I am very pleased that your visit to Ireland has coincided with this event today.

I’m delighted to launch our new National Strategy for Women and Girls. This Whole-of-Government Strategy will guide us, over the next five years, as we work to move ever closer to our goal of a gender equal society.

This goal is not a new one.

Equality, between women and men, has been a core principle of public policy and law in this country for a long time. Successive governments have worked to remove barriers to women’s full participation and to address the inequalities we still face.

And progress has been real.

Ireland, today, is a very different place for women and girls. In so many ways it is a better, fairer place than it was in our mothers’ and certainly in our grandmothers’ times. And that’s something we should both acknowledge and celebrate.

Serena Williams, the US tennis champion, once said:

“Every woman’s success should be an inspiration to another. We’re strongest when we cheer each other on.”

We all know, though, that it is not yet game, set, match.

There is much, much more we need to do. Across all measures of gender equality, we still have some distance to go to reach our goal.

To give an example from my own area of responsibility in the Department of Children, Disability and Equality: we are working to bring about major improvements in early childhood care and education.

This government is investing €1.48 billion in Budget 2026 because we know that having high quality, accessible, and affordable childcare is an essential prerequisite for gender equality. We are also extending parent’s leave and family leave to support parents who wish to spend more time at home with their young children. Parent’s leave entitles each parent to 9-weeks’ leave during the first two years of a child’s life. I think it is important that we note the words “each parent”.

There is a deliberate policy for both mother and father to take 9-weeks’ leave each rather than one parent taking all 18-weeks. That is gender equality in action.

This Strategy recognises that, above all else, women are all different. We have different strengths, different needs, and different ambitions. And these strengths, needs and ambitions change as we go through life. Women have many voices. And we, in Government, listened to the many voices of Ireland’s women and girls as we developed this Strategy.

I know that many of you here today gave your voice to the development of the Strategy, and I thank you for that.

I look forward to hearing from some of you as part of today’s event including from some of our inspirational guest speakers – disability rights activist Joanne O’Riordan, Irish rugby international Lynne Cantwell, Sheenagh Rowland and Hope Omoregie from the National Youth Assembly. And, from my own home town of Tralee, Ciara, Saoirse and Laoise Murphy, the winners of the BT Young Scientist competition.

One of the core messages to come from the consultations we did in preparing the Strategy was the importance of safety for women and girls. It is a sobering thought that when you ask women and girls what are the most important things that need to change to help them achieve equality with men, the answer is often “I need to be safe from violence.” That is the stark reality.

Violence against women and harassment of women are urgent problems that must be faced. They are a means of silencing women, of preventing us from participating, of making us afraid. We will not tolerate this, and we do not tolerate it. The State Agency Cuan was set up under the Department of Justice last year to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Their work is key to addressing this extreme manifestation of gender inequality.

New threats to gender equality have emerged more recently. There are toxic influencers who have been banned by social media platforms for saying women should not be allowed to drive, claiming that men have ‘authority’ over their female partners and much, much more.

Women have always had to face harassment in the real world, but they are now facing increasing levels of harassment in the online world.

The increasing power and accessibility of AI is changing our world. But it also has the potential to entrench harmful gender norms. For example, if an AI recruitment system is trained on historic data with men as construction workers and women as nurses, then it is very likely to have gender bias when assessing job applications and making job offers.

Coco Chanel, the French fashion designer, once said:

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”

This gives the adoption of this Strategy today by the Government of Ireland an added significance. It is more important than ever for those of us to hold equality between women and men as not only essential, but an achievable goal, to say so loudly, clearly and repeatedly: “A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”

The Strategy we launch today is a broad one. And so it should be. There is no area of public policy that is unaffected by gender inequality. Women and girls are half the population. And yet their full participation in all aspects of the life of our nation is not yet a reality. So we should not be surprised that our Strategy reaches into all policy areas. It builds on the significant work already underway across a range of areas from tackling violence to promoting women’s health, improving the availability and quality of childcare, supporting women in business and politics, and more.

One of the Strategy’s very goals is the economic and financial empowerment of women. The gender pay gap is a critical measure of inequality in this domain. Measuring this gap and seeing who is most affected by it will show us what we need to do to close it.

Gender pay gap reporting began in 2022 for organisations with over 250 employees. Since 2024, all employers with over 150 employees have been legally obliged to report on their gender pay gap. This is being extended to all employers with over 50 staff by the end of this month.

But it is disappointing that only an estimated 50% of relevant employers actually report on their gender pay gap on their company websites.

However, the time for going soft on those who are unwilling to tackle the gender pay gap is over.

The department has developed a Gender Pay Gap Portal for employers to upload their gender pay gap information. I am delighted to announce that the Portal is going live today as a signal of intent on the day of the launch of our new Women and Girls Strategy.

It will be voluntary for employers to use the Portal from today, but we are going to make it mandatory next year through legislation. I believe this publicly available Gender Pay Gap Portal will encourage a larger number of employers to meet their legal obligation. But, if they do not, I believe that it is only right that the public should also be able to easily find out who they are.

But we know that a Strategy is only as good as its implementation. So, what happens next?

The government will now agree the first of two Action Plans to implement the Strategy. I intend to publish the first Action Plan early in the New Year. It will set out in detail what steps government departments and agencies will take to achieve the objectives of our Strategy.

We will work with the National Women’s Council to develop this Action Plan.

I will also establish a Strategy Monitoring Committee to oversee our work and keep us all on track. That Committee will report regularly to me and I will keep my government and Oireachtas colleagues up to speed on our progress and where we may need help to overcome any barriers to that progress.

Is tír níos fearr do mhná agus do chailíní í Éire fiche fiche-cúig ná Éire naoi deág fiche-cúig

Leis an obair atá ar siúl againn anois sa straitéis seo, tá súil againn go mbeidh Éire fiche tríocha níos fearr fós do mhná agus do chailíní.

Spreagfaidh fís na straitéise sinn.

Tír a bheith againn inar féidir le mná agus cailíní rathú i sochaí atá fíor-chomhionann

Women’s equality is a goal we can all share and all work for together. In the words of Malala Yousefzai – the world’s youngest ever Nobel Laureate and a tireless champion of the rights of girls and women to education: ‘We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.’ You could say the goal of this Strategy is to prevent half of us from being held back, so that we can all succeed together.

Let’s dedicate ourselves to that work.

Go raibh maith agaibh.