When Kildare councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy joined the board of a local development company that administers crucial rural grants, one of the first things she did was to ask for information – how long had other members been serving, who nominated them, and what were any conflicts of interest.“These were very basic governance questions that you couldn’t get answers to.”
There is also widespread poor representation of women on boards, with an analysis finding that for two-thirds of these groups, women made up less than 40% of their board. Of the 37 organisations, we identified 12 that had a quarter or more of their directors serving terms of more than a decade. Often these also had poor gender balance.
The Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies sets out guidance around term limits. Such limits are designed to advance priorities of promoting gender balance, diversity and inclusion. North Tipperary LDC also said they will make changes in 2023/this year, and that two directors that have served on its board for more than a decade will resign their next AGM in July.Moy Valley Resources IRD has more than half the board serving for longer than a decade. This company is an animating partner.
In addition to Kildare, the local development company in Sligo also had a number of long-serving board members resign in 2020. A spokesperson did not answer these questions directly, but said in a statement that “no directors have served more than 3 terms of 3 years on our current board”. They added: Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council told Noteworthy that these figures “show that when we wait for change to happen by itself, it is too slow or doesn’t happen at all”. She added:
Such targets are not new. It stated in a recent report that a 40% quota on state boards was introduced back in 1993 and took 25 years to meet. Resolving imbalance ‘not a simple task’ We asked dozens of local development companies about the gender balance on their boards. “The Board will also use the Co-option provision for female representation. All constituent groups that nominate to the Board are requested to provide both a male and female nomination.”
Other companies, such as Kildare LDC, have and meet a target of 40%. Currently, Kildare LDC’s board has six women and four men . A spokesperson for Kildare LDC said this meets their policy of at least 40% female participation on its board.
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