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NWCI renews calls for mandatory gender pay gap reporting

Published: Wednesday, April 04, 2018

As UK companies report on their gender pay gap, the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) today renewed calls on the Irish Government to introduce pay transparency legislation.

Eilis Ni Chaithnia, Policy Coordinator said,

“NWCI is calling on the Government to introduce legislation that obliges companies to publish pay information broken down by gender. It is unacceptable that we have an increasing gender pay gap, currently at 14% and it is time for the Government to take serious actions to reduce and close the gap.”

“The Government has committed to bringing forward a range of actions to tackle the gender pay gap, starting with legislation on wage transparency, and the legislative agenda for Spring/Summer 2018 commits to a new Bill, the Gender Pay Gap (Wage Transparency) Bill 2018. We are calling on this Bill to be prioritised as a matter of urgency.”

Eilis Ni Chaithnia concluded,

“We can no longer accept situations where women are indirectly discriminated against in the workplace. We have moved beyond the stage of soft measures, and if change is to be achieved in our lifetime then we need strong commitments rooted in substantive laws and sanctions where necessary.”

“We must look at addressing wider inequalities for women that feed into the Gender Pay Gap, such as the high proportion of women working in low paid sectors, such as retail, childcare or the hospitality sector. Aligning the minimum wage with the living wage, and investing in affordable, accessible, quality childcare will all positively impact greater pay equality between women and men.”

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