The objective of the study
was to analyse the barriers and facilitators to the career ambitions of women. We were interested in
finding out if women were as ambitious as men or if structural barriers had caused them to downsize
their ambition. The findings of some researchers in the US had found that professional women were
leaving the workplace in significant numbers, that the workplace had indeed failed these women. Our
aim was to ascertain if the same was true for women in the Irish Civil Service.