Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome the opportunity to debate this important Bill. I am grateful to all colleagues for supporting the Bill through Second and Committee Stages. This Bill passed Second Stage in the Seanad with full support from all parties on 24 May 2017. It then passed Committee Stage on 25 October 2017. The Bill requires employers to publish information demonstrating any gap based on gender that exists in their organisation. It is based on legislation introduced in other EU countries and would require companies with 50 or more employees to report regularly on pay transparency in the workplace.

I have spoken with Senator Gavan and thank him and his Sinn Féin colleagues for engaging with us on the Bill and for their support on earlier Stages. I thank them for tabling an amendment on Report Stage, the intention of which is strengthen the Bill and its import. The "gender pay gap" is the term used to describe the difference between the pay of women and men calculated on the basis of the average difference in gross hourly earnings. In 2013, the European Commission showed that women in the EU earn approximately 16% less per hour than men. In Ireland, women earn approximately 14% less than men, a figure equating to women in full-time employment working for free for about one month in every year. Our legislation, which is a pay transparency Bill, aims to tackle this ongoing gender inequality head on. We have had equal pay legislation on the Statute Book for more than 40 years. That legislation tackles the somewhat different issue of pay discrimination between individual men and women in the workplace but has not addressed the ongoing macro-issue of the gender pay gap. Many more actions are needed to tackle the gender pay gap.

I thank the Sinn Féin Senators for raising the issue of publicity around companies that breach any provisions of the Bill. Our Bill requires the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, to collect the data and to take action against any companies that do not comply with measures aimed at addressing any gender pay gap that exists. Of course, as the Minister of State will be aware, we are doing this to build on the existing powers of the commission. However, we are mindful of the fact that the Government indicated previously its intention to propose amendments to the Bill and we indicated that we would be willing to accept amendments. It is unfortunate that the Government has not done so but, instead, has said that it will introduce its own legislation to tackle the gender pay gap because that will delay the introduction of important pay transparency legislation.By contrast, if this Bill is passed by the House tonight, as I hope and anticipate it will with cross-party support, we would see far speedier introduction of pay transparency legislation than through the Government's own Bill. It has not yet been published, but once it is it will have to go through pre-legislative scrutiny and then all Stages in both Houses. I have called previously on the Minister to take the approach of amending our Bill. Having said all that, I would like to accept the Sinn Féin amendment. I am conscious, however, that I do not want anything to stand in the way of our Bill being passed by the House tonight as the Government previously indicated that it will not oppose it. I have said this to Senator Gavan before and I know he appreciates the point. The Bill passed on Second and Committee Stages here in the Seanad.

Senator Clifford-Lee and her colleagues in Fianna Fáil have been equally supportive of the Bill, as has Sinn Féin and colleagues on the Independent benches. I do not want to jeopardise cross-party support by changing the Bill at this Stage. It is our intention, however, if it passes through the Seanad tonight to then introduce it in the Dáil, hopefully with cross-party support. The issues Senators Gavan and Devine are raising on publicity for companies that breach the legislation might be addressed at that point. I do not want to accept it now. I hope the Senators appreciate that I am not against it in principle, it is simply that it would be preferable for the Bill to pass, as is, in the Seanad tonight.

I know the Minister of State is cognisant of the issues involved and I have said that before. He was Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality when I authored that committee's report on women's participation in politics some years ago. We brought in gender quota legislation on foot of that and we were mindful in bringing that forward of the obstacles to women's career progression. They clearly contribute to the gender pay gap. We call them the four Cs that apply in every job: old boy culture; cash, women tend to have a lack of cash; access to childcare; and, of course, confidence, women tend to lack confidence compared to male counterparts. I know the Minister of State appreciates those. We pointed out a fifth C in politics, namely, candidate selection procedures and we sought to tackle that through the gender quota legislation. I see this legislation as very much in keeping with other measures we have introduced over the years to tackle gender inequality. I know the Government is committed to these measures because there was a commitment to publishing and introducing pay transparency in the 2016 programme for Government. We are anxious, however, to get this done speedily. I also know the Minister of State appreciates that. We think it could be done more quickly were the Government to accept this Bill without amendment. That is why I say, with regret, I would rather not accept the Sinn Féin amendment and get the Bill through tonight.

To deal specifically with the issue raised, we look at other jurisdictions, as we did in preparing this Bill. There are some measures in other jurisdictions on publicity, naming, etc. Since we debated this Bill last, we have seen companies in Britain publishing data. Where gender pay gaps exist in British companies it is very much in the public domain. I am thinking of the huge disparity between male and female employees exposed in airlines and the retail sector, for example, in Britain. There is great merit in it. In jurisdictions such as Australia, where gender pay gap legislation has been in place for a long time, companies are named but they name and fame as well as name and shame. If we are looking at publicity for company names, we need to be mindful that there are organisations which have been positive and proactive in addressing the gender pay gap and they should be named and credited. There are equal pay awards for those organisations in Australia where the gender pay gap has been addressed effectively and where improvements have been made. That is the sort of measure that might well be in a final version of this Bill whenever it finally gets passed. I am very grateful, again, to all of my colleagues for their support. Regretfully, I feel it is not appropriate to accept the amendment tonight. The principle behind it should be addressed with this Bill at a later stage.