Mr. David Joyce:

I thank the Cathaoirleach. Congress welcomes the opportunity to participate in the discussion on this important Bill. I am joined by my colleague from the SIPTU legal unit, Rachael Ryan. Congress and a number of affiliates participated actively in the review of equality legislation, submitting views to the consultation held by the Department. We were also part of the future of equality legislation advisory committee to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, which also fed into the review. The heads of Bill we are looking at propose a number of welcome changes to Ireland's equality legislation, including the prohibition of intersectional discrimination. However, that is only in the Equal Status Acts. We think it would be good to include it on multiple grounds or on the basis of a combination of grounds in the Employment Equality Act. The committee might consider looking at that. On equal pay for people with disabilities, the general scheme would remove the exception to the Employment Equality Acts which allows for people with disabilities to receive a lower level of pay in certain circumstances.

There are also a number of important issues which are not addressed by the general scheme, including banning discrimination on the basis of socioeconomic status. I know the Government previously committed to do that and has recently been informed that this is undergoing an SME test, which we will hear the results of in the autumn. I suppose we will await that. Also not addressed is banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics in order to provide explicit protection to all trans and non-binary people. We and SIPTU, in our submissions, also recommended amending section 101 of the Employment Equality Acts to let workers file termination claims under both this Act and the Unfair Dismissals Act.

Since this change has not been made or proposed, workers remain limited to one avenue of recourse. We would like the committee to reconsider this proposed amendment also.

There are a number of EU directives that require transposition in the coming period and that could have been better included. The pay transparency directive is referenced in heads 4 and 5, which is very welcome. However, it is clear that what is outlined in the heads comes nowhere close to a full transposition of the directive. There are many other important provisions in the directive that will require implementation, not least a legal right to represent workers and a framework for interaction via joint pay assessments. Perhaps all these will not require primary legislation, but it would be good to get a steer from the Department on what its intentions are in this regard.

The EU directives on standards for equality bodies, which contain binding standards on the mandate, independence, resources, tasks and powers of equality bodies such as IHREC, are also on the table today. I will finish there. I look forward to participating in the discussion.