The Irish Deputy Prime Minister (An Tánaiste) Mary Harney spoke at the Women In Banking and Finance (WIBF) Ireland first Open Evening held at Citigroup's Irish headquarters in the Irish Financial Services Centre in Dublin on Tuesday 5th October. Ms. Harney spoke to over 300 senior delegates – male and female – from many of the leading financial services companies in Ireland at the first event of this forum in Ireland. The second speaker of the evening was Dr Dan McLaughlin, Chief Economist with Bank of Ireland; both were speaking on the theme ‘Ireland in an expanded Europe'.
Phil Rafferty and Annette Farrell, co-chairs of the WIBF working group, welcomed this diverse group and the distinguished speakers, and introduced the concept of WIBF. They gave the group a brief insight into background and aims of the organisation, highlighting the benefits and opportunities available to members.
Pictured at the first open evening are -
Front row (l-r): Edel Devine, Citigroup; Denise Lloyd, First Active; Mary Harney, Tánaiste; Dr. Dan McLaughlin, Bank of Ireland;
Phil Rafferty, Citigroup; Grace Perrott, AIB.
Middle row (l-r): Eimear Berwick, Ulster Bank; Carin Bryans, JP Morgan; Annette Farrell, Citigroup;
Helen Leddy, National Irish; Norah Walsh, Citigroup; Louise Phelan, GE Finance.
Back row (l-r): Eamonn Eaton, Bank of Ireland; Evelyn Quigley, Citigroup.
Addressing the WIBF context of the evening, Mary Harney spoke about women's increasing role in Irish business and public life highlighting the fact that although women are beginning to move into the most senior positions, their representation is still low and does not reflect their contribution to Irish commercial or public life. She went on to stress the importance of groups like WIBF underlining the value of networking opportunities, role models, and confidence-building mechanisms, which are all vital if we are to enhance the position of women in our economic life.
Moving on to the topic of the evening Ms Harney highlighted as a grave concern the lack of consumer competition, which has led to a high cost of living in Ireland, advising that greater competition is required to encourage innovation and quality improvements. She endorsed the push for the removal of barriers and protectionism, for example in the provision of professional services and stressed the need to ‘match investment with reform in all areas of public services and investment – these reforms need to be based on outcomes and performance'. An Tánaiste also stressed the need to improve the quality of our education, particularly at third level. ‘We cannot have a knowledge economy without a first class educational sector'.
An Tánaiste Mary Harney addressing the inaugural WIBF Ireland event.
Dr Dan McLaughlin agreed with An Tánaiste's positioning of the European accession states as a significant opportunity for growth in the Irish economy. He gave a presentation on ‘Celtic Tiger – mark 2' discussing the factors which drove the Celtic Tiger: increased productivity and employment growth including significant growth in the proportion of women in the workforce; and contrasted these to the factors which will feature in the emerging Celtic Tiger 2 economy: continuing increases in productivity, continuing natural population increases, and immigration, perhaps in many cases from the accession states. This analysis gave many interested parties in the audience an insight into the workings and future of the Irish economy.
The evening was rounded off with a final few words of endorsement and thanks from Citigroup Ireland's CCO Aidan Brady and a promise of future support. To share in the celebrations of the evening were members of WIBF London Pandora Omaset, chair, Vivienne Omaset and Christine Lawrence in addition to Fiona Gifford of WIBF Edinburgh. Those members of the founding committee especially appreciated the enormous success of this first open evening. “As a cross-industry networking organisation WIBF Ireland will enable members to learn from each other in a non competitive environment. WIBF will give women, in a strongly male dominated industry, the opportunity to benefit both formally and informally from the experience of their peers in the industry”, said Annette Farrell of Citigroup, representing the WIBF Ireland founders group, “ in particular WIBF UK will provide us with a unique level of access to speakers and our peers in the UK market and will complement the training and development provided by individual companies, professional institutes and the Institute of Bankers.'
“WIBF Ireland will be about working together to shape leaders and make professional life more rewarding” she continued “to this end our purpose will be to support the exchange of ideas and know-how, find solutions and provide individuals with the tools to develop their careers and networks beyond the corporate boundaries. As this group is in the inception stage it is envisaged that a number of the initial events held will not require membership.” Ms. Farrell said, “We are always looking for more members and as the WIBF is a non-profit organisation, subscriptions are used to subsidise events, produce a newsletter and run our website.”
Dr Dan McLaughlin, Chief Economist Bank of Ireland, and An Tánaiste Mary Harney answer questions at the open forum.
WIBF Ireland will be working to shape leaders and make professional life more rewarding through a series of events that foster personal and professional advancement. These will leverage off the existing programmes and speakers panel available to WIBF UK. The proposed programmes are: Personal Excellence Programmes, Business and Leadership Programmes and Networking initiatives.
WIBF Ireland will be hosting a second event in Dublin on January 27th 2005. This will be a lecture on ‘Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace' presented by psychologist Dr Maureen Gaffney, chairperson of the National Economic and Social Forum, and well-known consultant in the field of leadership development and executive coaching.
The WIBF working group plans a strategy meeting in Dublin in November of this year, at which the formal structure for the organisation in Ireland will be agreed, and the programme of activities for 2005 will be prepared.