Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----and other advice that we did not follow. For example, the IMF took the view that we would help to resolve our unemployment crisis by cutting the minimum wage. That was done by Fianna Fáil and the Greens in office and we decided to reverse that when Fine Gael and the Labour Party came into office. Fine Gael has increased the minimum wage three times since, with a further increase in January.

As for international analyses as to how Ireland is doing, I note that the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, released its figures last week as to how Ireland is performing across a number of measures. The UNDP uses something called the human development index, which, unlike gross domestic product, GDP, which just measures economic success, power and prowess, looks at things such as life expectancy and education and many other different factors. The UNDP put Ireland in fourth place in the world and said Ireland had moved up the rankings between 2012 and 2017, more quickly than any other country in the world. While we have serious problems and enormous challenges in this country, which no one denies for a second, at least one body, the United Nations, recognises the enormous progress we have made. I imagine that if a UN committee of less stature had a critical report about Ireland, it probably would have been major news, but when a big agency such as the UN Development Programme produces a report such as the one it has produced, it barely gets noticed. Perhaps this is an opportunity at least to put that on the record of the Dáil.

The Government approved the general scheme of the gender pay gap Bill. I acknowledge Senator Bacik in particular as being one of the leaders behind this who gave impetus to the Bill. It will promote transparency on wage levels, initially for large employers. The general scheme proposes that we start with employers of more than 250 employees and extend over time to smaller employers of about 50. Like many things, and as is often the case with a new policy or measure, this would be done with a view to phasing it in. Phasing in measures allows us to pick up mistakes and so on. We do not want to wait until we have everything ready and all the staff and IT systems in place to do this. We can bring it in in phases. We often phase in policies, which I do not think is necessarily a bad thing. The legislation will come before the Dáil and the Seanad, which may decide that 250 is too high and 50 too low and decide on a different figure, and we are certainly open to considering that.

Regarding trade wars, "Yes, absolutely" is the answer to Deputy Martin's question. When I met President Trump last March, it was one of the issues we discussed. I explained to him why we believe trade wars have no winners and why we believe in free trade across the Atlantic. I always use the opportunity when I engage with the US Administration to point out the extent to which trade in Ireland now very much goes both ways. The US has a small trade surplus with Ireland. We have a surplus in terms of goods, and they have a surplus in terms of services. President Trump often sees trade only as goods. He very much fixates on cars, steel and other manufactured items, whereas we all know that the economy is much more than goods. Services are now the biggest part of any western economy, and the US has a very significant surplus with Ireland when it comes to services. Investment goes both ways. Approximately 150,000 people in Ireland work in US-owned firms. Approximately 100,000 Americans across 50 states work in Irish-owned firms.

I always try to make this point, that free trade makes everyone better off in the round. I keep making that case. I also made the case with Kevin Hassett, who visited last week. Last week I had the opportunity to meet him in the US ambassador's residence. The Ministers of State, Deputies Breen and O'Donovan, very recently paid a visit to the United States to discuss Aughinish Alumina and Rusal and our concern that US trade sanctions may affect Rusal. We are working very hard on that, and Deputy Deasy is very involved in it too. The answer, therefore, is "Yes". It is always our role in engagements with the US Administration to make the case for free trade, which, along with free enterprise, once was a core American value but is less so under the current Administration.

Regarding the better balance for business initiative, we have established a business-led group charged with increasing the representation of women on boards of Irish publicly listed companies. The group is led by Bríd Horan, former deputy CEO of the ESB, and Gary Kennedy, who is chair of Greencore, and it is based on the successful model in the UK. It will engage with companies and report back on actions to increase the percentage of women on corporate boards and in senior management in leading companies. Deputies will be aware that we have met and exceeded our target of ensuring that at least 40% of State board members are women - we met the target in July - and that in the past year, 52% of appointments to State boards through the Public Appointments Service, PAS, process were female. This is the first time that more than half of the people appointed to State boards through the PAS process have been female. We are not going to wait at 40%. We are going to keep moving towards parity. Furthermore, about 40% of appointments last year to the senior positions of the public service, those of Secretary General and assistant secretary, were female.

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