"In some ways, it feels like we’re breaking new ground here,” she explains.“Here in Ireland, we have always supported Pride, and because we’re an international business, we all work with a diverse group of colleagues in every sense."
“But,” she acknowledges, “at a recent event we held in the office about sexual orientation and inclusion, I realised that we had never openly discussed anything directly related to someone’s sexuality in the office.”
It’s a topic that is close to Jacinta’s heart, not least because she shares her home with her son and his husband, who married about 18 months after same sex-marriage was legalised in Ireland in 2015.
“I remember going to the polling station with my son,” she says, “and thinking how busy it was. And he said to me, “look at all the mammies!”. It wasn’t just the young people voted; you could see people of my generation and older voting – either for themselves, or on behalf of loved ones, or both. You could tell from the looks on their faces that they were voting for change. It was a lovely moment.”
