Lack of childcare facilities is the biggest impediment to women returning to work and remains an obstacle for working mothers, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, said yesterday.

She was speaking at the launch of an AIB report on "Women in Business", which recommends the provision of an AIB group creche and signals the end of the "female only" uniform policy. It said the impact of the latter on customer perception and staff morale had to be recognised. Most women questioned, both in internal and external research for the report, felt that bank society was "predominantly male and out of touch". Eighty five per cent of women believed that the presence of more females in middle management would alleviate this. Ms O'Donnell said that the issue of mobility for many working women needed "intellectual investment". "Most modern women here would accept that childcare is the unfinished business in terms of employment and the equality agenda," she said. Among the AIB report's recommendations are that the group establish a creche "recognising that such a facility is likely to benefit the bank's female staff more than the bank's male staff, given that women continue to have primary responsibility for childcare in our society". Mr Tom Mulcahy, AIB group chief executive, said that the recommendations had yet to be considered, but one of the problems with providing creche facilities was how to cater for rural bank branches. Other recommendations are that the group lobby the Government to provide tax relief for working mothers, to "lead by example" by promoting women into senior management positions and, in relation to uniforms, "remove this differentiated treatment for males and females".

The chairwoman of task force is Ms Jane Williams, a management consultant and founder of Network, the organisation for women. She said that although women comprise 38 per cent of the labour force, business is predominantly a male preserve.