The Irish Government has adopted Gender Mainstreaming as a strategy to promote equal opportunities between women and men in the National Development Plan. This is important, as women and men often have different access to resources, and carry out different tasks intheir daily lives.

For example, 63% of Irish men have a full driving license compared to 46% of Irish women. So women are more likely than men to use public transport. We know that 73% of men are in the labour force compared to 50% of women. So women are more likely than men to be travelling to non-work facilities. Putting a gender equality perspective in mainstream transport policies means considering public transport provision – not just to places of work but also to these other facilities to which women are more likely to travel than men.

Gender mainstreaming is a requirement for all policies and programmes funded under the NDP. A number of specific commitments have been made in the plan. These are:

• Requiring that equal opportunities be part of the criteria for selecting projects to be funded by the NDP.
• Requiring that indicators be provided for each gender 'where the nature of the assistance permits.'
• Promoting a balance of women and men on Monitoring Committees.
• Including a representative for equal opportunities from a relevant Government Department or Statutory Body on all monitoring committees.
• Establishing a unit to support and monitor gender mainstreaming in the NDP and to advise on the development of appropriate indicators to measure this, in the Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform.
• Establishing an Equal Opportunities and Social Inclusion Co-ordinating Committee to oversee progress in equal opportunities issues in NDP spending.
• In addition, the NDP identifies equal opportunities between men and women as an objective of the Employment and Human Resources Development Operational Programme.

The NDP Gender Equality Unit This Unit was established in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, to provide support and advice to policy makers and implementers on how to meet the gender mainstreaming. It is funded through the Employment and Human Resources Development Operational Programme of the NDP. €5.36 million will havebeen allocated to the Unit by 2006.

The United carries out work in a number of areas to support gender mainstreaming. These include:

Training
Since 2000, over 800 NDP policy makers have been trained on gender equality issues in general and specifically in a number of policy areas including the following – Training, Housing, Transport, Sports, Tourism, Enterprise Development, Urban Development, Agriculture and Rural Development.

Advice
The Unit provides advice to policy makers and implementers and provides input to the Equal Opportunities and Social Inclusion Co-Ordinating Committee.

Statistics
In 2000, a database of gender disaggregated statistics, relevant to NDP areas, was compiled. This was updated in 2002.

In 2001, data was commissioned both on the use of transport by women and men, and housing conditions for women and men in Ireland. These surveys are being updated in 2004.

Other Statistical work by the Unit includes a survey on women and men in business and enterprise, and a compilation of statistics on women and men in Ireland today.

Research
Research work on gender equality issues in various policy areas has been published in factsheets. These cover the policy areas of industry, training, agriculture & rural development, housing, transport, sports and leisure, tourism, arts and culture, urban development, crime prevention, I.T. and E-commerce, infrastructure and youth services.

In 2001, the Unit funded a consortium of six county development boards to be trained in gender proofing. As part of this work a gender proofing handbook has been produced, which includes practical examples on how to gender proof different policies.

The Unit's publications and relevant statistics are available on its Website: www.ndpgenderequality.ie