Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am open to informal engagement with the committee and with you, Chairman, on your interim recommendations on the constitutional point. That would be very useful.

Regarding the mechanism for delivery of the narrowing and, it is to be hoped, eventual removal of the gender pay gap, the implementation of the legislation will be important in making clear what the issues are, what companies see as the reasons behind those issues and what those companies are doing to address them. The first step is to get the core information and then we can look at what other measures are necessary to narrow it. I had a useful engagement with the UK Minister for Women and Equalities when I was at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. She set out some new measures taking place in the UK. When new positions are being advertised the company will put the rate of pay expected in the advertisement because the history when it comes to pay negotiations is that women do worse in them than men or, perhaps, pay being pitched to women and people from minority groups by the prospective employer is at a lower rate. It is an interesting idea to have a requirement that the salary scale should be in the advertisement. It is not something I had considered previously. There is a range of issues that we can examine to deliver on narrowing that gap.

The third point was with respect to childcare and the goal of a publicly funded system. The initiation of core funding is going to be a huge step towards that. In a full year, that will be €221 million. That is an additional approximately €110 million on the existing investment. This year, we are putting €710 million into childcare before any increases introduced in next year's budget. Any additional spending will bring it to over €800 million in 2023. It is a significant advance in the quantum of money. However, the key issue is that it is not just about public investment and public money, it is also about the public management of the system. That is very important because this is not going to work if we do not have public management. The key tool of public management is the fee freeze that we are asking for in exchange for this very significant investment in services. The fee freeze is a first step towards the goal we all want, which is reduced fees for parents. We get the fee freeze now and then in future budgets focus on broadening out the national childcare scheme, NCS, the direct subvention that parents get. Of course, every additional euro we put into the national childcare scheme is bringing us more towards a fully publicly funded model.

Regarding the statutory body, I might refer back with a written response on that. That is probably an area where we do not have detailed proposals at this stage. There is a lot of recommendations here and a lot for my Department. Deputies and Senators will understand that there will have to be an element of prioritisation in our work. That is one, perhaps, on which there is a good deal more to do.