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.
Following the series of layoff announcements by US digital services firms, Chief Economics Writer Stephen Kinsella and Senior Correspondent Thomas Hubert join Editor Ian Keohe to place the recent tech slump in the context of the Irish economy. They also discuss the wider attitude towards foreign investment when it comes to land, a tentative government move to recognise that property is no longer the only form of lifelong savings for Ireland's population and the prospect of a trade war between the EU and the US.
Clare Meskill, a speech and language therapist, saw a gap in how people with Parkinson's are being cared for in Ireland. In this podcast, she tells Rosanna Cooney about raising €700,000 to expand Teleatherapy, the MedTech app she founded that allows clinicians to monitor patients' speech therapy in-between appointments and is backed by Enterprise Ireland.
Brian McGovern has been building businesses since college. Now, he has co-founded The Baby Academy to plug the gap in antenatal and postnatal health education globally. With one million registered users, he talks to Rosanna Cooney about the mercy of failing fast and his philosophy of ambitious frugality.
Through the Aura Holohan Group, Gar Holohan runs the largest health and fitness group in the country. After four decades in the business, he has seen the same mistakes be repeated over and over again. He talks to Rosanna Cooney about flipping the negative attitude to investing in social infrastructure in Ireland.
Ronan Doherty was a co-founder of ElectroRoute in 2011 and remains the chief executive of the Letterkenny-headquartered energy trading company following its full acquisition by Mitsubishi last year. The business boasts over 10 per cent of Ireland's electricity supply capacity under management, trading its mostly renewable production across Europe, and is now expanding into Japan. Doherty tells Thomas Hubert why he believes ElectroRoute is an essential cog in the system that will wean us off fossil fuels.
GridBeyond is an Irish company helping businesses around the world manage their energy input using a combination of consumption management, on-site equipment such as batteries and solar panels, and supplier contracts. Its chief executive Michael Phelan gives Thomas Hubert some tips on how to navigate the volatile electricity market and discusses the impact of the ongoing energy crisis on the much-needed transition to low-carbon power.
Meredith Greif is a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA. Her work focuses on the symbiotic relationship between tenants and landlords. "The point of my work," she told Sean Keyes in this week's podcast, "is to show that caring about landlords is important because it means caring about tenants. Landlords' behaviour is so consequential that if you want to help the renter, you have to think about what's happening to the landlord. And it's not condoning or looking away from bad landlord behaviour".
Seven years ago, Sinead Doherty read the tea leaves and predicted that the future of work would be impermanent, flexible, and based on a contractor model. Her company Fenero, which offers tax and payroll solutions for contractors and freelancers, has since reaped the benefits. In this podcast, she talks to Rosanna Cooney about expanding into India and accountancy's digital transformation.
Theresa Reidy from UCC and Gary Murphy from DCU discuss the last two years of this government as Leo Varadkar returns as Taoiseach and why these years may be the ones that define Varadkar as a politician.
In episode 6 of Energy Matters, Ian Kehoe is joined by Jonah Goldman, founder of North Cascades Strategies, an organisation that works with innovators, advocates, and governments to invest in a net zero future.
Jonah was previously CEO of Breakthrough Energy, a Bill Gates-backed venture designed to accelerate innovation in sustainable energy.
Jonah discusses what needs to be done to reach net zero, what technologies need to be invested in, and where we are falling down on that journey.
This series is sponsored by Pinergy.
