Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate and it is good to see that the Bill has been strengthened since its incarnation in 2019. I also pay tribute to my colleague, Senator Clifford-Lee, and Sonya Lennon who started the very good WorkEqual campaign in 2016 which certainly educated me and many others about this particular issue. Closing the gender pay gap is a priority for the Government and completely rightly so.

It is estimated that at the current pace of change it would take 55 years to close the pay gap. That is quite shocking when one thinks about it. We need to accelerate any change that we can make and it is incumbent on all of us in this House, and of course in the Dáil, to do that. The gap is experienced very acutely by older women, women from ethnic minority backgrounds and those with disabilities. It has a particularly difficult impact on certain cohorts of women and we need to be very mindful of that. Possibly this is because women are disproportionately represented in low-paid and precarious employment. The gap at the moment is spoken about as 14.4% meaning that women are really only being paid for 75% of the year. I suggest that it is higher than that at the moment because when we saw the unemployment figures coming through as a result of the pandemic, we certainly noticed that the increase in these figures was higher among women than men. It could be as high as 17% at this point in time.

Pay transparency is recognised internationally as a good tool to help reduce pay gaps because it gives access to information to employees. That is important. It is a first and important step but this is really about how we move forward, what happens next, the follow-through and the cultural change within our employment sector.

The gender pay gap is, of course, not just a gap it is a gaping injustice. We need a fair and equal economy that rewards work and not gender. Gender should not come into any element of pay. People need to be paid a fair wage or salary for the work they do. This legislation will not be enough in its own right. We need to work on other areas that will help to reduce the gender pay gap and one of these is to establish affordable childcare. That has to be a priority for this Government. I know that the Minister fully takes on board the issues around supporting childcare for families and I know that point had been well made by other colleagues.

Shared parental leave also has to be improved. This was dealt with in a Bill that I and Senator Chambers brought in to the last Dáil. There are many different areas that we need to look at to support women in and coming back into the workplace, and for many reasons. We all saw the impact of the 2012 legislation in respect of women’s pension inequity. This was quite shocking. We have moved some way in changing that but the longer women are out of work or in lower-paid employment, the greater the pension gap is going to be which will create problems down the line.

It is great to hear the announcement today from the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on the 10,000 places are that are going to be made available on the Springboard+ scheme to encourage people back into the workplace and that women are included in that. It is fair and accurate to say that it is our generation’s task to eradicate inequality and that is a very difficult job to do. We should be able to eradicate discrimination and the gender pay gap is a form of discrimination against women. I thank the House.