Why is the Iseq such a bastion of brotherhoods?

Deirdre Somers, chief executive of the Irish Stock Exchange, was in the news this week after the exchange held a press conference extolling its contribution to the economy.

Somers is one of the handful of high-profile female corporate figures in Ireland.

It is a pity, then, that the boards of directors of the companies on the Iseq index are such a bunch of brotherhoods.

The European Commission has already reported that fewer than one in 10 directors of the biggest Irish plcs are female.

Drill deeper and it is obvious that Ireland must be, to mangle an Endaism, the worst small country in which to be a woman director.

Of the ISEQ’s 52 members, almost half (24) haven’t a single female director. They are mostly, though not all, smaller outfits.

Step forward the likes of Fyffes, Merrion Pharmaceuticals and Zamano.

Just a men’s room off the boardroom, then?

Of the remaining 28, which do have women on the board, a dozen have just the one.

They are all perfectly qualified and capable directors in their own rights, but it is hard to avoid the whiff of tokenism to lob just one woman on to your board.

It reduces the issue to mere optics, like having a company carbon usage statement, or a Trocaire box at front desk.

Only three Iseq-listed companies have more than two women on their boards – Tesco, Diageo and UTV – and they're are all British companies.

The starkest statistic is that, of the 150-200 executive directors – board members who also help to manage their companies – just eight are women. And two of those are Maureen Jones, the managing director of both Conroy Gold and Karelian Diamonds, two exploration minnows.

Apart from Jones, just two other Iseq companies are run by women. Siobhán Talbot is managing director of Glanbia, but she is still the only woman on its board of 22 directors.

The other woman Iseq boss is Anne Heraty of CPL Resources. And she founded the company.

It is hard to walk down the street these days without tripping over a feminist cause. Some of it is vacuous noise: trendy Twitter twaddle designed to get a “like” from the crowd.

Twitter feminists Why, then, is there relative silence over the lack of senior women in corporate Ireland? Perhaps it’s a left-wing thing. Irish Twitter feminists have not been beating a drum loudly over male-only plcs.

Ireland is often touted as the Silicon Valley of Europe, which suggests that things might not get much better anytime soon.

Californian tech companies are well known as macho boys’ clubs.

The problem isn’t just at plc level, either.

In his impressive new book Family Business: A Survival Guide, accountant Kieran McCarthy tackles the shortage of women in Irish family-owned firms.

He suggests women either “lack the confidence or the access to capital” to set up in business.

The stark truth is that there are not enough women qualified to sit as directors of plcs, not because women don’t have the capability but because not enough have the top level management experience required. Not many women get those jobs.

Board quotas might help, but measures to help women progress to more senior ranks throughout companies would help more.

Allowing mothers to equally split their maternity leave with fathers would be a good start to reducing discrimination.