Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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343. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps he is taking to identify and address gender pay disparity in his Department and public bodies and agencies that operate under his remit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17359/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The majority of recruitment to my Department is from 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 competitions all internal interview boards 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 both report on the gender pay gap in organisations and provide details of measures being taken to reduce the gap. My Department will comply with these requirements when in place.

The information in respect of state bodies, within the scope of the Deputy’s question, is not held by my Department. Contact details for these bodies are set out in the attached document should the Deputy wish to contact them directly with this query.

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