Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I thank Senator Boyhan for seconding the amendment. We had a debate on this provision on Committee Stage so I will not delay proceedings. The amendment is about delay and it seeks to ensure the publication of guidance to give effect the Bill's provisions would come in immediately after commencement. This is simply to avoid any further delays in the introduction and implementation of gender pay gap laws.

As I said on Committee Stage, we know employers, trade unions and workers across the country are well aware this legislation is coming and is long overdue. They have been making preparations on this for quite some time and a trade union representative told me last week that many companies had almost given up on it. They had plans in place for gender pay gap reporting and wage transparency some years ago when the Bill was first mooted and when my Bill went through the Seanad and the Dáil. Due to the fact that it has taken so long, the process has stagnated somewhat in different companies. There is a real concern about further delays.

I commend the Minister on his expediency in moving this forward as soon as he took office. Given that there were so many delays before he took office and the long period in which we had to prepare for the Bill's introduction, we wanted to change the text from "as soon as is reasonably practicable" to "immediately". This would give more of a sense of urgency that people across the country are telling us is required.