The Department of Agriculture was criticised yesterday for having one of the worst records on appointing women to State boards and bodies.
A Labour Party conference on rural women was told that only 21 per cent of appointments to boards under the Department's aegis were women, while women also remain in the lower ranks of the Civil Service with the Department.
"Despite the fact that the Minister for Agriculture, like all of his Government colleagues, has signed up to a commitment to reach a 40 per cent representation rate, the reality is that he has continued to allocate jobs on State boards and agencies mainly to men," the Labour Party spokesperson on Equality, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, told the conference in Thurles, Co Tipperary.
One of the Minister for Agriculture's most "blatant anti-women acts" was his decision to exclude women from the beef task force, she said.
Ms O'Sullivan said if rural women were to be encouraged to "stand up and be counted", it was essential there was a change of attitude in the Department.
Women played a pivotal role in rural communities and their contribution to farm work, care of the elderly and community development was taken for granted.
"The time has come to put women to the forefront in rural policies, Otherwise rural Ireland runs the risk of falling deeper into decline," she said.
The chairwoman of the IFA's national farm family committee, Ms Betty Murphy, told the conference that farm women contributed about a quarter of the family work input on farms, yet their contribution had been undervalued by the Government, historians, industry, the wider community and women them selves.
"As things stand, the full participation of farm women in the farm workforce is not properly recognised and encouraged, and there are many areas of discrimination against women farmers which need addressing," she added.
The traditional image of farm women no longer reflected the complex role they played in the running of modern-day farms. Many farm women were at the heart of running farms and their role as administrators and managers had become increasingly central to the viability of many Irish farms, she said.
The fabric of rural Ireland was in jeopardy because of the inadequate recognition of rural women, poor transport systems, and a lack of childcare facilities and of educational facilities for women.
She called for women's work at home or on the farm to be marked within the tax and social systems and for a clarification of the position of rural women under the tax individualisation system. "Individualisation doesn't offer full recognition and we need clarification of the situation. Women are not treated as workers, are not available for work, receive no benefits or recognition so they don't exist. Besides recognition of rural women's work, the conference identified childcare facilities, transport services and access to education as important areas that need to be addressed in rural Ireland. Speakers said childcare would have to take account of the particular needs of rural women.
As well as the cost involved, lack of transport and distance from services were particular obstacles for women seeking childcare facilities in rural areas.
Inadequate transportation was identified as contributing to the isolation of women living in the countryside.
"The absence of public transport over much of rural Ireland increases the inaccessibility of services.
"Health boards need to be more aware of the problems which these women may experience and must consider innovative ways of ensuring that women in remote rural areas benefit from services which people in more populated areas take for granted," Ms Murphy said.
The president of the ICA, Ms Breda Raggett, told the conference that childcare was still a big issue for rural women, with many young married women working outside the home.
"There is an exodus to towns because there are no childcare facilities in country areas.
"The Government has created an even more ridiculous situation by providing capital funding for creche buildings but no support for parents who used them," she said.
Ms Raggett said Ireland had one of the youngest populations in Europe.
"If we can't have a young population it will have dire consequences both economically and socially. We need a young workforce.
"Irish women have been isolated and we need to give them the encouragement to get out there to find their real potential."
She called for educational courses to be brought to rural women rather than a mass exodus from the country. "The notion of matching the starting times of FAS courses with public transport or school opening hours seems as far away as ever," she said.
"It may well be that these issues will be addressed more quickly with the sudden upsurge of people moving from the major cities to smaller urban and rural areas, for reason of house prices."
Labour Senator Kathleen O'Meara said the party would be using the conference to help complete policy documents on sustaining livelihoods in rural Ireland.
Ensuring that women living in rural Ireland would not be forgotten would be a priority for Labour if it participated in the next government, she said.
"Childcare and transport are vital. To date, childcare provision has only centred on urban solutions and they are only at starting phase. We have to come up with more creative solutions to include rural areas," said Senator O'Meara.