Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Táim sásta tacaíocht a thabhairt don Bhille seo. I am delighted to support the Bill and I commend the ongoing work of Senator Bacik, who has long been a champion of women's rights, on introducing it.

While there has been much change in society over the past few decades and many barriers to gender equality have been broken down, this does not mean we can afford to be complacent. Structural and cultural issues that prevent true gender equality remain and they must be overcome through positive measures such as the Bill. It has been more than 40 years since Ireland introduced the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act and yet the most recent CSO figures show that, on average, women in this country are paid 14% less than men. There are many complex reasons such a difference persists, despite laws to prevent gender pay discrimination. Fortunately, overt discrimination has become less frequent, but there continues to be significant gender segregation by occupation and the undervaluing of occupations in sectors that are predominantly female.

Gender equality, like all matters of equality, cannot be achieved by passive acts. It must be won through positive action. We can write the words on paper and pass laws calling for an end to discrimination but without active enforcement, follow-up, research and work, we cannot overcome the more subtle problems. The Bill will work to tackle these subtleties through the collection of data. Detail will show us exactly where problems lie and inform us how we must tackle them. In particular, I welcome the Bill’s call for companies with more than 50 employees to publish information on the proportion of male and female employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands. There are many organisations where, while men and women on the same band are paid equally, women comprise the majority of the lower pay levels and men the majority of the upper pay levels. Last year we learned this was the case for Departments, where women fail to break through to upper and managerial levels. With data we can learn how systemic this is and develop the policies and supports necessary to address it.

Ending the pay gap will not only be beneficial for women; rather, it will be beneficial to the economy at large. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that cutting the pay gap could boost OECD economies by €4.9 trillion. I hope the measures outlined in this Bill will be extended to cover companies and enterprises with fewer than 50 employees and ensure that areas with precarious employment, in which women are more likely to be employed than men, are monitored and assessed for gender biases.

There is much more work to be done to value women’s work across all sectors and advance gender equality, which is a priority of the Oireachtas women's parliamentary caucus. Senator Bacik’s Bill will make a significant positive impact in addressing gender pay issues.

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