New gender pay gap reporting rules expand to more Irish businesses in 2025
This year, for the first time, businesses with 50 or more employees are legally required to report their Gender Pay Gap (GPG).
Until now this was only a requirement for businesses employing more than 150 employees. And while this is a significant change it's also a positive move for society, it will help ensure pay equity is embedded right across the labour force.
To help organisations in meeting this requirement, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality is launching a new portal this autumn. This will make it easier for employers to file their reports and for the public to view them.
Far more than a compliance task, GPG reporting is a hugely positive step towards workplace gender equality. It allows employers to acknowledge the gaps between their employees and take steps to address the underlying issues.
Of course, by law, people doing the same work must get the same pay. But the gender pay gap refers to the difference in the average hourly wage of all the men and all the women, in any organisation. For example, if an employer has more executive staff who are men and more junior staff who are women, a clear gender gap will exist.
Simply reporting on gender pay helps employers to view their employees through an important lens, helping to ensure there is a balanced mix of men and women at every level.
If there isn't a balanced mix of employees, GPG reporting can help employers to understand why not. For example, it could be that their recruitment policies need to be reassessed; that stereotyping or unconscious bias is leading to the promotion of one gender over the other; or that roles are being structured without reference to a work life balance, caring responsibilities or family leaves.
If efforts to close the gender pay gap globally were to continue at their current rate, it would take women 134 years to reach full parity
Research from the European Commission shows women in the EU earn on average 13 per cent less than their male counterparts. In Ireland EU estimates for 2023 found women earned on average 8.6 per cent less than their male counterparts.
This is an area we are now starting to get clarity on, thanks to the 2021 Gender Pay Gap Information Act, which requires organisations to report on their GPG each year.
The gap is typically lower for new labour market entrants but widens with age, often as a result of career interruptions that women may experience during their working life.
Closing the gap is not just important for today but for tomorrow too. A 2019 analysis from the Economic and Social Research Institute, covering data collected throughout the 2010s, found that women retired earning 35 per cent less than their male counterparts, which has a significant impact on their income in retirement.
If efforts to close the gender pay gap globally were to continue at their current rate, it would take women 134 years to reach full parity, according to the World Economic Forum. This is why the move to include organisations in Ireland with 50 or more employees is essential.
As the figure has changed from 150 employees last year, and 250 employees in 2022, a much clearer picture on pay will emerge. That's good news for employers, existing employees and job seekers too.
How does it work?
Businesses and organisations that employ more than 50 people can select any date in June 2025, and submit their Gender Pay Gap (GPG) report within five months of that date, before the 30th November. If a business chooses a date in June, for example, it must then calculate the number of employees on this date and their entire remuneration for the previous 12 months.
For each employee, that includes total ordinary pay as well as any bonuses or benefits in kind received over the preceding 12 months. Based on this information, the employee's hourly pay can be calculated.
The Department of Children, Disability and Equality's new central portal will allow for a comparison of GPG data across different sectors, industries and levels of seniority. All employer reports can be easily uploaded and can be accessed publicly. The portal will be available in Autumn 2025.
Kathleen Linehan, group strategic director of human resources at the Trigon Hotels Group in Cork is looking forward to uploading its gender pay gap report this year. The company includes much loved hotels such as the Metropole and Cork International Hotel.
As someone who is passionate about ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace – Linehan is a cousin of disability rights activist and former sports journalist Joanne O'Riordan – GPG is a metric she already tracks.
The Trigon Hotels Group in Cork includes much loved hotels such as the Metropole and Cork International Hotel.
She joined the company in 2019, from a lean manufacturing background, and is a long-standing believer that you can't manage what you can't measure.
'Every single thing we do in our HR department is data driven,' she explains. 'We have monthly HR reports in which we include the gender balance in our departments, as well as the mix of nationalities we have, so that we have diversity of thought and better mixing.' One of her first steps on joining was to introduce a structured, transparent pay scale, as well as training and development to support staff in their career progression.
With 240 staff spread across three separate commercial entities, it is only this year that each hotel comes under the new reporting obligations.
'We already have all the information we will require because this is something we've been working on all the time,' she says. 'I was only pulling out our data on this last week and took enormous pleasure in seeing the great balance we have so I only see gender pay gap reporting as a positive.'
For more information, visit gov.ie
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