Labour Bill should be adopted by the Government.
Labour Seanad Leader, Ivana Bacik, has welcomed the cross-party support received for the Labour Party’s Bill designed to close the gender pay gap.
Commenting today Senator Bacik said:
“I was delighted to see such broad political support for the Labour Party’s Gender Pay Gap Bill which was before the Dail last night. Members of Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, Solidarity, and Independents spoke in favour of our Bill which we tabled during our Private Members time.
“The Bill received similar cross-party support when I introduced it originally in the Seanad. While I appreciate that the government has not blocked the legislation so far in its passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas, it appears that they do not want to adopt this legislation, and that instead they are willing to incur delays in the implementation of the important principles on gender pay gap reporting, by insisting on introducing their own legislation.
“We need to take action on this now; the government has promised to introduce their own legislation to tackle the gender pay gap, but this promised bill has not yet been published and would, in any case, be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny prior to being introduced in the Oireachtas. By contrast, our Bill has already progressed through the Seanad and has now started its passage through the Dáil. We would see a far speedier introduction of pay transparency legislation if the government simply adopted and amended our Labour Bill, and I call on the Minister to take that approach.”