Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleagues, Senators Ardagh and Crowe, on bringing forward this legislation. It is valuable and important that we move to a place of absolute transparency. There is no excuse now for it not being so. There is discrimination and there are clear disparities in rates of pay, depending on where one is from, and on one's ability to negotiate in a new workplace. Unfortunately, in many instances we see that people from eastern Europe, in particular, are exploited. Over the years I have been involved in cases defending employees in such instances. It is really quite shameful how some employers think it is all right to treat employees in this way. Consequently, we need as much as possible on a statutory and mandatory footing.

I would question a couple of things in the Bill. It should apply to any role. Lower paid roles generally have a rate per hour. Many companies with fewer than 50 employees will give those rates per hour. It tends to be the case that for more highly remunerated positions that the rate of pay is never disclosed. While I understand that having a threshold of 50 workers is consistent with other legislation, and I can see where the genesis of this came from, I am not sure it is necessary. I would ask the Senators to think about that.

We could go further here. For example, we could ensure employers have an obligation to show complete transparency in how they arrive at a rate of pay. There should be such a process within all workplaces. Any companies that I have worked with over the years set out a matrix of how they arrive at an annual salary and the steps regarding qualifications, etc., that bring them to that figure. When one is interviewing for a position, one has to have a matrix of competencies and decision-making set out, so it can be clearly demonstrated in the event of a claim under the Employment Equality Act 1998. When we have benchmarking and when industry norms are published, certainly within the recruitment industry on a regular basis, there is no reason we should not also have an obligation, perhaps in the WRC aspect of this, that a company has to produce a matrix of how it arrived at that particular figure and what is included. It may well be that if it advertises a range and if one has a higher level of competency and experience, that will give an increment of X and Y. In this way, we have a scope within the rates that are advertised and we also have a rationale that is predetermined before an individual is engaged with. That would also lend itself to good transparency and would be useful.

I agree with not asking about the expected rate of pay. I am a little bit nervous about it with regard to how I know recruitment agencies operate. If somebody has a particular salary expectation, they are going to need to be asked about it. Presumably, there will be a part of their engagement with the employment agency when the soliciting of salary expectations the person has is permissible in a particular category. There is no point in a person going to an employment agency and having an expectation of what they want and making sure that-----