Ms Marie Sherlock:

I agree in large part with what has been said. The purpose of the Bill is not just to depict the trend but to understand the causal factors behind the gap or why the gap exists within the organisations. In that regard there is an issue with just stating the proportions of workers in each of the quartiles. We believe the criteria set out under head 2, section 6, need to go further. The section refers to the difference between males and females in terms of hourly pay, bonus pay and those who are part-time and on temporary contracts. That is welcome. However, it does not refer to the proportion of workers in those categories. The Bill requires the proportion of workers who are paid bonuses and benefit-in-kind but it does not seek the proportions of those in part-time and temporary work. That is important.

It is also important to understand the definition of part-time work. There are two definitions. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, typically defines part-time work as working less than full-time hours and then there are those who might be called marginal part-time workers who typically work less than half of full-time hours. That is an important feature to understand particularly if women are trapped or certainly working marginal part-time hours and the share of women in the organisation who are in that situation. That ultimately informs the bigger picture or the narrative as to why the gap may or may not be big. In addition, while the average hourly pay gap across Ireland is approximately 14% the weekly pay gap is well in excess of 30%. Again, that is because of the differential between the hours worked between men and women.

When we look at the factors that are driving the gap we know that sector and occupation are important as is employment status in terms of part-time work. Another thing that is very important - it is not discussed here but should be acknowledged - is that there is lower wage dispersion within organisations and less of a pay gap when there are strong systems of collective bargaining within the organisations. This Bill is obviously important in terms of pay transparency but it does not fix everything.