Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister but I respectfully disagree. Section 20A, as he Minister said, sets out the content of the information and it is great that we have this clarity but the lack of clarity I am referring to is about how it is to be conveyed. Let me put these questions. Will it be on a website? The Minister clarified on Committee Stage that the information would be generated on our website. Who will administer this website? Will it be a central website? Will it be individual websites of employers? My next amendment addresses this. Who will maintain and check the data published on the website? Who will keep it updated? Who will put out the press releases about it. I accept that of course some flexibility is required but I am concerned.There is an over-reliance on flexibility at the expense of clarity for employers and employees on how this will take effect. We know the data the employers will be obliged to provide, but to whom will they provide it and how will it be administered is the key question. To be fair, it was one of the key questions that Ministers in the previous Government raised with me in regard to my Bill. Under my Bill, IHREC was given the role of collecting the data from employers, publishing it, monitoring it and enforcing it in regard to breaches and so on. We were very clear in that legislation on how the publication of gender pay gap information would be managed. The then Minister and Government said that it was not an appropriate function for IHREC and that it would require a great deal of extra resourcing for IHREC. I accepted that point, but what we were seeking to do was to provide clarity on how this provision would take effect. Looking at other jurisdictions, that is a crucial question. This is not just about detail as to the information that employers provide, it is also about the detail as to how the legislation will take effect. The day-to-day mechanisms of who collects the data is critical. The provision in subsections (4) and (5) do not outline in a clear fashion exactly what the regulations will provide with regard to classes of employer, classes of employee and so on, let alone how the data will be maintained. The concern is the lack of clarity in this regard in the legislation. That is a fair point to make. We also had much stronger enforcement powers for IHREC in the original shape of the legislation. We are concerned not to see any of that in this legislation. We are also concerned that when the Bill is passed, there will still be a lack of certainty about how it will take effect.