Welcome to another episode of The Restless Politics Leading with me, Alistair Campbell,

and without Roy Stewart who is having day off, or holiday, or something I don't know,

preparing to attend the coronation with his friend, the king.

But I'm delighted to be joined by, I think you're the second former president that we've

had on the podcast, Mary McElise, two-term president of the Republic of Ireland.

And Mary, I don't know where to start with you, because there isn't awful lot to get through.

I think that, you know, we get quite a lot of criticism for not having enough women

on the leading podcast, and there is a pretty obvious reason for that, which is that through

time and still today, there are far more male leaders than female leaders.

You were, I think still, you're still unique as being the, you're definitely the first

woman president to succeed a woman president, you followed Mary Robinson.

But still leadership is very, very male, and you've taught a lot in the past about misogyny

within Irish society, within culture more broadly, within the church.

So I want to start with that really, you're take on women in leadership.

Why so few?

How do we get more?

We're talking at a time when someone might come straight back at us and say, well, you've

been the president of Ireland, you know, you got to be a provised chancellor of the university

we're setting in.

Yeah, yesterday had a women in business conference in Belfast.

I looked down and there was the head of the civil service, a young woman, the chief justice

of Northern Ireland, a woman.

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