Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 7:

In page 4, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: “(viii) the percentage of all employees of the male gender who received shares as part of a renumeration package and the percentage of all employees of the female gender who received the same form of renumeration;”.

In these amendments we move on from the most vulnerable workers, who are often those on non-fixed hour or flexible contracts, and sometimes part-time contracts. Quality part-time work is and should be an option. Unfortunately, many part-time contracts are insecure.

Amendment Nos. 7 and 8 seek to address the other end of the scale in respect of the boardroom to shop floor picture across a company. In fairness, there are some very good measures in the Bill. I welcome the fact that bonuses are identified in it. That is a good piece, in terms of attempting to identify some of the other benefits and the ways in which gender inequality in remuneration may come across.

In these amendments I identify two areas which may have been missed by the Bill. One is in respect of the receipt of shares. I have had very lengthy debates on Finance Bills over the past four years because I have been concerned about measures to make it easier to increase the proportion of a remuneration package that may be constituted by shares, which of course also means that a different level of tax is being paid. That contributes to the erosion of our tax base by allowing more favourable tax measures through the receipt of shares versus income. It is a practice which is increasing. It can mean the difference between paying the 41% rate of income tax and paying a much lower rate on a share component.

Where shares are part of an annual remuneration package, it is important that we consider the gender breakdown. It is not quite a bonus; it is a little different. I thought perhaps a bonus would capture this, but unfortunately it does not. It is something that needs to be considered. It is a widespread practice, in particular in some of the financial services areas. SIPTU and ICTU have been very active regarding the Bill. I have also spoken to the Financial Services Union, FSU, which is extremely interested in this area and is very aware of these kinds of programmes at both levels. These are common practices and require a gender analysis.

The other piece is the special assignee relief programme, SARP. It involves very favourable tax relief measures given to certain employees who are perhaps part of an international corporation and have been assigned to work in Ireland. That is another area for which we need to have analysis. We need to know whether it is effectively ending up as a top floor bonus for men within companies. Those are the two areas I would like to see addressed.