Ms Nichola Harkin:

I absolutely agree that underemployment of female workers is absolutely an issue. What Deputy Clare Daly is saying about employers being concerned that they might look bad is interesting. I think that probably feeds into the issue that we have here. If one looks at the press coverage of the gender pay gap publication figures in the UK, it very much focused on the employer, the company and the gender pay gap within a company and employer. We can all agree there are some things employers can do but there are other things they cannot do. The gender pay gap has in some ways been caused - not completely, but in some ways - by the cost of childcare and the number of female graduates coming through in STEM subjects. There is only so much employers can do to actually fix that.

There is some a concern from an employer's point of view that there will be reputational damage from this measure, even in circumstances where employers may be doing everything in their power to address the gender pay gap but in which, because of factors outside their control, they are still constrained and still have a gender pay gap. That is a genuine concern of employers and it is why the general understanding on the causes of the gender pay gap is important. It is useful that everyone here has accepted that there is a multiplicity of factors which feed into it.