Based on the most recent Central Statistics Office (CSO) data, there are now 25% more female board members than male board members (from 22% to 25%).

The information relates to large businesses with 250 or more employees that were asked to submit details about their senior executive team and board of directors on January 1st of this year. According to the CSO, 69% of the nearly 700 included enterprises completed the survey.

Over the same time period, the percentage of women in chief executive officer (CEO) positions increased from 13% to 19%, while it decreased from 28% to just under 26% for chief financial officer (CFO) positions.

In 2023, men held 70% of senior executive positions in Ireland, with women occupying the remaining 30% of these positions.

The sector with the highest percentage of women in senior executive positions was arts, entertainment, recreation, and other service activities (43.6%), followed by accommodation & food service activities' (36.8%) and 'financial and insurance activities (33.9%).

The lowest gender balance was found in the transportation and construction industries, where women held 26.2% and 13.4% of senior executive positions.

The data also revealed that, up from 18.4% in 2021, 24.7% of Irish businesses now have at least 40% female representation on their boards, and 29.4% of businesses have the same level of female representation at the senior executive level. This figure, however, indicated a much slighter improvement over the corresponding figure from 2021 of 28.6%.