Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 13:

In page 4, to delete lines 38 to 41, and in page 5, to delete lines 1 to 10 and substitute the following:

“(3) Regulations made under this section shall not apply to an employer having fewer than 20 employees.”.

These are the amendments seeking to lower the threshold at which the legislation will apply to different organisations. I spoke on Second Stage about this and I am using the Minister's own term when I refer to the long incubation it has had. Given that long incubation period, and that we in Labour first introduced legislation in this House in May 2017, I really do not see why it is necessary to continue to have this phased or incremental approach to bringing the legislation in. With respect, it is unduly cautious, particularly given that, as I have said, employers, trade unions and workers have all been expecting and anticipating this for so long. It is in place in so many other jurisdictions, including the one closest to us. I do not see why, therefore, we still have this very cautious incremental approach where the legislation is first to apply to employers with at least 250 employees, then to some employers with 150 and so on.

I will give the Minister a few very clear reasons as to why we should be setting the threshold lower from the start. First, the original legislation under which the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, was established gives it powers of enforcement and powers of oversight for gender equality and other equality action plans in respect of all employers with 50 or more employees. That was why, in the legislation it we put forward, the Labour Party set the threshold at 50. I am grateful to Senator Sherlock for giving me the following data. If we set the threshold at 50, this will only capture 1.4% of all enterprises and workplaces, according to the CSO. This will capture only 57.5% of all employees. Thus, even 50 employees is quite high by Irish standards because so many of our citizens and residents work in small companies and enterprises. That is why, in our amendment No. 13 we are going a little further, being a little more bold or ambitious and saying let us set the threshold at 20 employees. We have known for a long time that this was coming. The Government's Bill is eventually going to apply to companies with 50 employees or more, why do we not go a little further than that? If we set the threshold at that level of 20, below the original threshold of 50 we proposed in 2017 and below the threshold in this legislation, we would still only capture 4% of all enterprises, Senator Sherlock tells me, but we would capture 71% of employees. Thus it will have quite a dramatic impact in terms of increasing the number of employees to which it will apply.

I already pointed out that in other jurisdictions we see similarly ambitious legislation. Not in Britain, which has set the threshold high, but then it has a greater number of large employers. We can examine the examples of Sweden and Finland, however. In Sweden, gender pay gap legislation enacted in 2009, more than ten years ago, provides for wage reporting for all firms with ten or more employees. In Finland, the legislation applies to firms with 30 or more employees. Consequently, we think that at the very least the incremental approach should be abandoned and we should see the legislation applying from the outset to firms with 50 employees or more but preferably, we think we should go further now and have the legislation apply to employers with 20 or more employees. I look forward to hearing more form the Minister on this but I emphasise that this is in the context of a long incubation period of a series of years where so many employers, particularly those with 50 or more employees, have already got in place gender pay gap reporting mechanisms. This means that they are ready and waiting for the legislation to be enacted. Furthermore, there are already delays built in, in the form of the commencement date, the need to prepare the regulations and so on. As such, even upon enactment, we know that the legislation will not immediately come into effect. As I said, an overly cautious and incremental approach is being taken.