I was a teacher in the 1970s when Paddy Hillery was our EEC Commissioner. I taught in one room and a lovely man from Connemara, Pádraig Joyce, taught in the room beside me in Summerhill. We taught the same pupils. He was paid one third more than I was, even though we taught the same pupils – young women up to 18 years of age – the same curriculum with, hopefully, the same outcome. It is 25 years since that was changed. There are still many areas where equal pay is not the norm and women do not receive the same salaries for the same work. Teaching and public services were among the first sectors to be tackled when the European Union insisted on equal pay – we would probably still be waiting for our own Governments to do something. There were howls that nobody could afford this.