David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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371. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the steps she will take to address issues pertaining to the gender pay gap between men and women; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10940/17]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Policy responsibility for gender equality in employment remains with my colleagues the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald TD and her colleague David Stanton, TD Minister of State for Justice at the Department of Justice and Equality with special responsibility for Equality, Immigration, and Integration.

To that end, Minister of State Stanton is chairing the Strategy Committee to advise the Department of Justice and Equality on the preparation of the new National Women's Strategy. In the public consultation, the gender pay gap has emerged as an issue of concern to many respondents.

Under Section 10 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) have a statutory role to ' keep under review the adequacy and effectiveness of law and practice in the State relation to the protection of human rights and equality'.

With regards to my Department, in 2015 Ministers Richard Bruton and Ged Nash (then Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Minister for Business and Employment, respectively) wrote to the Low Pay Commission to report on the preponderance of women on the national minimum wage.

The report found only 5% of employees are on the National Minimum Wage. It is self-evident that men and women on the National Minimum Wage receive the same remuneration per hour - €9.25 per hour. However, 64.7% of employees on the National Minimum Wage are women. Reasons suggested by the report for this are; women tend to work part-time more often than men because of caring responsibilities, the cost of childcare and women are over-represented in the Accommodation and Food sector, which carries the greatest risk factor of being on the National Minimum Wage. The report was brought to Government and published in October 2016.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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372. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the gender employment gap based on latest data at hand; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11034/17]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The gender employment gap is defined as the difference between the male and female employment rates (the number of male/females aged between 15 and 64 expressed as a percentage of the total male/female population aged between 15 and 64). According to the Central Statistics Office release regarding Quarter 4 2016, the male participation rate is 71.2% and the female participation rate is 60.1%.

A recent report (October 2016) from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, based in Ireland, on the topic of the gender employment gap points out that in almost all Member States, employment and labour market participation (or activity) rates for women, even if they have increased over the decades, are still systematically lower than for men, while unemployment and, especially, inactivity rates are higher, due in large part to the disproportionately high number of women who do not participate because of care responsibilities.

This is consistent with the findings of the Low Pay Commission when it examined the preponderance of women on the NMW. The Commission report pointed to CSO data that demonstrates the differing reasons for taking up part-time work: - for females, 24% indicate that ‘caring for children or incapacitated adults’ is the reason, with a further 28% indicating ‘other personal or family reason’. Clearly the same issues arise in terms of participation.

The Low Pay Commission agreed that the Government has recognised the impact and importance of the costs of childcare both to parents and to the labour market, and through its proposed actions in Budget 2017 has begun to put in place measures to help address the difficulties surrounding the lack of affordability of childcare in Ireland.

The Eurofound report indicates that in 2014, the EU employment rate for people aged 15 to 64, as measured by the EU’s Labour Force Survey, was 59.6% for women and 70.1% for men. Since 2008, the female employment rate has increased only slightly, with the convergence in employment driven by the relative worsening of the male employment rate. The gender gap in employment rates is highest in Greece, Italy and Malta, while it remains low in northern countries such as Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. Ireland is in a middle group where the rate ranges between 60% and 69%.

As the deputy will be aware, policy responsibility for gender equality in employment remains with my colleagues the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald TD and her colleague David Stanton TD, Minister of State for Justice at the Department of Justice and Equality with special responsibility for Equality, Immigration, and Integration. To that end, Minister of State Stanton is chairing the Strategy Committee to advise the Department of Justice and Equality on the preparation of the new National Women's Strategy. Issues such as female participation and gender pay gaps arise in that context. My Department is represented on that Group.