Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The national reform programme justifiably highlights the disparity in employment rates between men and women, which have widened once again in recent years. However, it completely fails to mention the disparity in pay that women in the workforce experience. Yesterday marked the Work Equal campaign's day of action to highlight the gender pay gap in Ireland. It was in effect the date on which women stopped receiving an income for their work for the remainder of the year relative to their male counterparts. CSO data show that on average, women in Ireland are paid 14% less than men. Ireland is not an outlier in its failure to address the gender pay gap and addressing it should form part of the national reform programme. European Unequal Pay Day was marked on 31 October. The bottom line is that Irish women, like many women across Europe, work two months out of 12 for free when compared with men.

I understand the general scheme of the Gender Pay Gap (Information) Bill will be before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality next week for pre-legislative scrutiny. While gender pay gap reporting is an important tool that will assist in identifying pay differentials and might assist in tackling the pay gap issue, there are other tools at the disposal of the Taoiseach. The programme for Government commits to strengthening the role of the Low Pay Commission in tackling the gender pay gap as well as in-work poverty and also commits to strengthening regulation on precarious work. Women workers are disproportionately represented in low pay sectors such as retail and hospitality. What actions have been taken to strengthen the role of the Low Pay Commission in tackling in-work poverty, precarious work and the gender pay gap?

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