The Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2120 was passed into law on 13 July 2021. It introduces gender pay gap reporting in Ireland.

The Act does not itself contain gender pay gap reporting obligations but creates a power to make Regulations mandating employers to report on their gender pay gaps, and it’s expected that reporting obligations will commence in 2022. The Regulations are expected to provide clarity for employers on what will be required (see below), although there is the potential for delay because they will need to properly implement the requirements of the proposed EU pay transparency directive.

Employers in both the private and public sector will be obliged to report on their gender pay gap and publish information relating to it. Initially, this will be required by organisations with 250 employees or more, with the threshold eventually reducing to 50 employees or more over a three-year period.

It’s expected that employers will be required to report on:

• mean and median gender pay gaps;
• mean and median bonus gaps;
• mean and median gender pay gaps for part-time workers;
• the proportions of men and women within each of four quartiles;
• the proportion of men and women who received a bonus;
• the proportion of men and women who received a benefit in kind.

In addition, the Regulations may include a requirement to report mean and median pay gaps for temporary workers.