Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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305. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps she is taking to identify and address gender pay disparity in her Department and public bodies and agencies that operate under her remit; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17354/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Recruitment of staff to my Department is generally through the Public Appointments Service (PAS) which is the centralised provider of recruitment, assessment and selection services across the Civil Service. All recruitment activities by the PAS are underpinned by their Equality, Inclusion and Diversity strategy 2021-2023 which identifies the key strategic priorities of greater knowledge and understanding of diversity in the recruitment market and the Irish public sector and also recruitment and selection processes that encourage and enable access to candidates from diverse backgrounds. In the case of internal promotion competitions all internal interview board members are required to participate in unconscious bias training to eliminate gender stereotyping and encourage diversity in recruitment.

My Department has been represented on a civil service Gender Pay Gap Interdepartmental working group since May 2021. The Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 will require employers to report on the gender pay gap in organisations and to provide details of measures being taken to reduce the gap. Both my Department and the public bodies and agencies under the remit of my Department will comply with these requirements when they are in place.