Ireland has a "considerably lower" representation of women on company boards compared to neighbouring countries, with just 5 per cent of seats held by female directors, a survey has found.

The study, commissioned by the International Women's Forum, shows that, of 810 seats in 100 leading private companies, only 40 are held by women.

Just 32 per cent of companies willing to be surveyed had one or more women directors.

This compared to 57 per cent in Britain, and 87 per cent in the US, where 12 per cent of all directors are women.

The study, Women and Corporate Governance in Ireland, also cited a divergence of opinion between male and female directors about the reasons for the low representation of women.

The main reasons identified by men were that women had not been coming through the ranks for long enough, reluctance on the part of qualified women to announce their interest in board service and a shortage of qualified women.

Women directors, in contrast, laid the responsibility for gender imbalance on companies, with a majority suggesting that boards did not know where to find suitable women.

"While they [women directors\] also recognised that suitable women were not coming forward for board service, the persistence of gender role stereotyping in board cultures was identified by them as an important obstacle to women holding directorships," said the report's joint-author Dr Yvonne Galligan of the Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics at Queen's University Belfast.

Dr Galligan added the greatest disparity in male and female opinion centred on a perceived difference in leadership styles. Just 23 per cent of men felt there was such a difference compared to 64 per cent of women.