Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response and setting out in detail the substance of the amendments he proposes to bring forward on Report Stage. I know that the consultation process was concluded on 4 October and that, as he said, the symposium will be held on 4 December. As we are anxious to make progress on this issue, I wonder if he could outline a timeline. We hope to bring the Bill back to the House early in the new year for Report Stage and I understand some of this is within our control as the Labour Party group; therefore, it would be good to work with the Minister of State and his officials on the amendments in the meantime. I am conscious that we did this in the enactment of our previous Private Members' Bill, the Competition (Amendment) Bill, which became law this year.

The Minister of State has set out in some detail what might be a better mechanism for wage surveys, under which it would be a Government responsibility. That answers Senator Conway-Walsh's concern about making it more prescriptive in that the Government would have to require the publication of wage surveys. It would be positive to include a role for the commission in providing for oversight and monitoring. That is the diagnostic aspect. The curative aspect involves the penalty and so on, a matter we will debate when we come to deal with amendment No. 4.

I am grateful to the Minister of State for setting out his intention to amend the Bill on Report Stage. I also thank other colleagues for their support for the Bill.

I congratulate Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee in particular. She is right about affordable child care, parental leave and paternity leave. There are other measures that need to be taken to address the bigger structural issue of gender pay discrimination. The real experiences of individuals in the workplace have been brought home to me since we introduced the Bill. Women have come up to me and said they have experienced gender pay discrimination, yet there are still people who deny that there is a gender pay gap. We might call them gender pay gap deniers. It is very important that we move forward quickly on this issue to challenge the deniers and show that there is a problem in particular sectors or organisations.