Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Again, this amendment arises from the debate on Committee Stage and this issue has been debated extensively over the years since I first introduced gender pay gap legislation in this House. As soon as it was enacted, my Bill would have applied to all organisations with 50 or more employees. In that regard, we were simply taking the model of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission legislation, which has a similar remit for all organisations with 50 or more employees.We believe that was the right number at the time. To initiate the legislation with respect only to bigger employers would miss a large number of employees. We are disappointed, therefore, that the Government’s legislation will only come into effect incrementally and will only apply to organisations with 50 or more employees after some years. Given the years of gestation and preparation, it would be appropriate to move the threshold down to 20 employees, as provided for in this amendment. Other Opposition parties had similar amendments on Committee Stage.

There are many small firms in Ireland with small numbers of employees. In Finland and Sweden the thresholds are 30 employees and ten employees, respectively. Clearly, allowances must be made to ensure there are no breaches of identity and that the data are anonymised, but again we can see this being done elsewhere in countries with many small firms. I reintroduced this amendment on Report Stage to highlight this point. We are concerned, as is the trade union movement and the National Women’s Council of Ireland, NWCI, at the slow pace of expansion of the legislation to cover smaller companies.