Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I formally second the amendment of my colleague Senator Devine. We support this Bill fully and we will do nothing to jeopardise its passing tonight, as I assured the House earlier. I will say this to the Minister of State. As I think he indicated earlier, he does not intend to oppose this Bill. I hope that is still the case. If it is, I ask him to consider not opposing our amendment either because it is the most moderate of amendments. Section 46 of the existing Bill states that an employer which contravenes the provisions of a scheme made under this section is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a class A fine. We support that provision. The difficulty with the provision is that a class A fine has a value of €5,000. Let us be frank, the head of a large corporation is not going to be too worried about a €5,000 fine. We are not trying to change that.

All we are saying, in addition to that, is that where a company does not comply with the legislation, by refusing to comply with publishing data, let us ensure that its name is published by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. That is it. There is nothing else. The stars will not fall out of the heavens and everything will carry on as before. We are simply asking that the name be published. This is for a simple reason and Senator Bacik referred to it. Publicity is going to be much more powerful in changing the gender pay gap than a fine. We all recognise that. If Senator Bacik's concern about our amendment is just that it might jeopardise the Bill, I ask the Minister of State to reassure her that just as he will not oppose the Bill, he will also not oppose this simple, extremely moderate measure. It only says that if a company refuses to comply, if it refuses to release this data, then its name would be published. That is all. We will not be pushing this to a vote because we do not want to jeopardise the Bill. It is a good Bill and it is great to see so much co-operation on this. Equally, however, I can see no reason the Minister of State would oppose this. It is such a small, simple point. I hope that we can be reasonable, all of us together, and show politics working this evening.