The Irish Legislation Podcast with Barry Ward

S2 Ep1: Irish Corporate Governance (Gender Balance) Bill 2021

The Irish Legislation Podcast with Barry Ward

Show Notes

In Episode 1 of Season 2, Senator Barry Ward talks gender quotas in business and the Irish Corporate Governance (Gender Balance) Bill 2021 with Fine Gael TD for Dublin Mid-West, Emer Higgins, and Orla O’Connor, Director of the National Women’s Council. This episode covers gender quotas, how they will work for boards of Irish companies, how to address gender imbalance and whether gender quotas are a fair approach.

Emer Higgins is a Fine Gael TD for Dublin Mid-West and former Chief of Staff, Global Operations, Europe, for PayPal. You can follow Emer Higgins TD on Twitter @EmerHigginsTD, on Instagram @emerhigginstd, on Facebook at EmerHigginsTD, on LinkedIn, or on her web site: www.emerhiggins.com.

Orla O’Connor is Director of the National Women’s Council, the leading national women’s membership organisation in Ireland, with over 190-member groups. She was Co-Director of Together For Yes, the national Civil Society Campaign to remove the 8th Amendment in the referendum. For her role in Together for Yes, Orla was recognised as one of the 100 Most Influential People by TIME magazine in 2019. A feminist and expert in the policies needed to progress women’s equality in Ireland, Orla has led numerous high level, successful campaigns on a wide range of issues on women’s rights, including social welfare reform, pension reform and for the introduction of quality and affordable childcare. Orla is passionate about ensuring access to women’s reproductive rights; about ensuring more women are in leadership positions; about ending violence against women; and increasing women’s economic equality. You can follow Orla O’Connor on Twitter @OrlaNWCI or find out more on the National Women’s Council’s web site. You can follow the National Women’s Council on Twitter @NWCI, on Instagram @womens_council_ireland, on Facebook @NationalWomensCouncilofIreland, and on its web site.

The Irish Legislation Podcast is presented by Senator Barry Ward. Follow Barry on Twitter @barrymward; Instagram @barrym_ward; Facebook at BarryWard.ie; or his web site: www.barryward.ie.

E-mail [email protected] with any comments or suggestions.

More from The Irish Legislation Podcast with Barry Ward

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In this episode, Senator Barry Ward speaks to Senator Pauline O’Reilly, Vice Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality, which has been established on foot of the recommendations of the Report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality (read the report here). The discussion deals not just with what the Committee will do and how it will operate, but how it was established, who is on it, and the time frame within which it hopes to report to the Oireachtas.

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In this episode, Senator Barry Ward talks to his Seanad colleague, Independent Senator Eileen Flynn, about her private member’s bill to remove the term “child pornography” from Irish legislation, and replace it with the more appropriate term “child sexual exploitation material”. Also in the podcast are Emer Taylor and Jessica Bray, who worked on the Bill with Senator Flynn. This is a first for Irish legislation because it alters the title of an existing act without repealing it; the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 will become the Child Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation Material Act 1998. You can read the Bill here.

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This week, Senator Barry Ward talks ticket touts with former Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, and barrister and law lecturer, James McDermott. The Sale of Tickets (Cultural, Entertainment, Recreational and Sporting Events) Act 2021 all stages and was signed into law last July and is now facing its first real life tests as live events return. Then TD for Dublin North-West, Noel Rock, along with Stephen Donnelly TD , originally sponsored the Prohibition of Above-cost Ticket Touting Bill 2017, which fell with the 32nd Dáil and was re-entered as the Sale of Tickets (Cultural, Entertainment, Recreational and Sporting Events) Bill 2021 by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, Leo Varadkar TD.

Oct 27, 2021

This week, Senator Barry Ward looks at a private members bill to ban so-called “conversion therapies”, which seek to change a person’s . Barry is joined by one of the sponsors of this cross-party legislation, Senator Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael – Cork South-Central), and practising psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, who is opposed to the bill.

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A quick recap of season 1 and preview of what's to come on season 2.

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