Ms Ethel Buckley:

I am not familiar with the specifics of the proposal in respect of a quality assurance mark. My head goes to the practicalities of how it might be measured. For trade unions, a real mark of the quality of an employer is its attitude towards workplace democracy. We know that workplace democracy and engaging with staff, their representatives and trade unions and taking part in collective bargaining are the key instrument for raising the quality of women's pay and jobs and ensuring that women progress well in organisations. The real game-changer in the context of the gender pay gap is ensuring that people, mainly women, who work in part-time roles and flexible roles are not disadvantaged for so doing. In our submission, we demonstrated that where collective bargaining is widespread, such as in the public sector, one gets a very different result on the gender pay gap than one does where it is less prevalent. For us, the real instrument will be the expansion of collective bargaining. The high-level expert group was announced yesterday. We are eagerly awaiting the transposition of the European directive which went through earlier this week on adequate minimum wages, which will expand collective bargaining coverage to 80% of the country. That will be a real game-changer for working women, particularly low-paid working women.

I would like the opportunity to clarify SIPTU's position on domestic violence leave. I have not had a chance to address that issue yet.