Twenty years ago, Sport Ireland launched its Women in Sport programme with a bold aim: to give women equal opportunities on the pitch. Two decades later, participation is up, sponsorships are stronger, and elite events are drawing record crowds. But stubborn challenges remain — from teenage dropout rates to a shortage of facilities and patchy media coverage.
In this episode of Sports Matters, Ian Kehoe sits down with two women at the forefront of change: Niamh Tallon, founder and CEO of Her Sport, and Emer O’Sullivan, corporate affairs director at Lidl Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Tallon talks about why she launched Her Sport and the mission that drives it: “Our vision is equal opportunity in sport, regardless of gender… Wwe have to be honest with ourselves when we look at the landscape and realise that the opportunity for girls and women is not the same.”
O’Sullivan explains Lidl’s long-running sponsorship of ladies' Gaelic football, from the controversial “Lady Ball” launch to grassroots investment in jerseys and equipment: “We want to do good, we want to be purpose-driven… but equally there are commercial reasons too. It has to work both ways.”
They discuss the barriers that still hold girls and women back — from lack of toilets at pitches to entrenched club cultures — and the power of visibility to change the game. “If girls have a positive experience, they have the facilities… They’ll tend to stay in sport,” O’Sullivan says.
Sports Matters is sponsored by the law firm Whitney Moore.
As tensions rise between performance culture and employee self-care, David Barrett, a psychometrics specialist, sorts what works from what doesn't. He talks to Rosanna Cooney about what constitutes a good investment in employee wellness. The Talent Matters podcast series is in association with Talent Summit and sponsored by Employee Financial Wellness.
AJ Thomas is chief chaos officer with Google's secretive innovation lab: X, Moonshot Factory. She talks to Rosanna Cooney about setting personal moonshots and using simple certainties to chart a path through the unknown. Talent Matters is a podcast series digging into some of the biggest issues facing employers today. This series is in association with Talent Summit and sponsored by Employee Financial Wellness.
Billy Magra has led an extraordinary life. One of his gifts during a career in comedy, music and television was identifying the coming trends. Now he wants to be part of a third-act revolution.
April Jordan is the manager for astronaut selection at NASA Johnson Space Centre. In this podcast, she talks to Rosanna Cooney about the space agency's rigorous two-year selection process and how it tests candidates for temperament, team skills, and resilience.
Talent Matters is a podcast series digging into some of the biggest issues facing employers today. This series is in association with Talent Summit and sponsored by Employee Financial Wellness.
Eddie Wilson served as Ryanair's chief people officer for two decades before migrating to the airline's chief executive chair. He talks to Rosanna Cooney about flexing the boundaries of an HR role to make it indispensable to management and the naivety of workplace loyalty. Talent Matters is a new podcast series digging into some of the biggest issues facing employers today. This series is in association with Talent Summit and sponsored by Employee Financial Wellness.
Talent Matters is a new podcast series digging into some of the biggest issues facing employers today. In this first episode, Rosanna Cooney talks to Nick Lawlor, CEO of Employee Financial Wellness, and Antonia King, head of employee engagement and internal communications at Stepstone, about the disconnect people feel between their salaries and the life they want to live. They also talk about where the responsibility for educating employees on financial literacy lies. This series is in association with Talent Summit and sponsored by Employee Financial Wellness.
Sinn Féin’s spokespeople on climate action and transport, Darren O’Rourke TD, and on climate justice, Senator Lynn Boylan, answer Thomas Hubert’s questions on the party’s developing climate policy.
From their proposals to reform the funding of renewable electricity development to the re-allocation of home retrofitting grants and their support for BusConnects, a picture emerges of how Ireland would attempt to cut its greenhouse gas emissions under a Sinn Féin government. They also explain why key elements, such as the level of climate effort expected of agriculture, are still missing from the party’s manifesto.
Cork-based Treemetrics is working with the European Space Agency to use satellite imagery and its own measurement technology to provide more accurate forest carbon credit estimates in a rapidly growing industry. In this podcast, chief executive, Enda Keane, talks to Rosanna Cooney about the eighteen-year journey to get to this point and the future regulation of carbon offsets.
At the beginning of last year, NewsWhip began the process of securing additional capital to fund the new phase of its growth. Last week, the company disclosed that it had secured $13 million in debt from London-based AshGrove Capital. It will use the money to grow headcount to more than 120 people over the coming three years and fund the development of better products. In this podcast, CEO Paul Quigley talks about the new funds, the company’s journey, and the future of media.
