Nicola Harkin

So very much from our members' point of view, the primary concern at this point is needing certainty as to the timing of when this directive is actually going to come into place.

and certainty as to exactly what our draft legislation and guidance is going to provide.

Yeah, I think building on it is probably the right term because in some ways, Ireland is a little bit ahead of other EU member states in that we already have gender pay gap reporting in place.

So for a lot of member states, it was gender pay gap reporting elements of the directive that were causing the most amount of headaches for how that would be implemented.

But as I say, because we've had it in Ireland since 2022, we're a little bit ahead of the game on that.

But how the directive builds on our existing gender pay gap rules

is that it introduces this idea of reporting on pay gaps within those categories of workers that I've mentioned.

And if there is a pay gap of 5% or more within a category of worker, and that pay gap can't be justified or remedied within six months,

the employer has to enter into a joint pay assessment with worker representatives.

So that's probably the key development within the pay transparency directive on our existing gender pay gap reporting rules.

Everybody is covered by at least some elements of the directive.

So the directive doesn't exclude anyone in its entirety, but it does include certain provisions where member states can include a derogation.

So, for example, it allows member states to exclude companies of 50 employees or less from rules around communicating the pay progression criteria within their organisation.

But in simple terms, every employer will be impacted in some way by this directive once it comes into place.

I suppose it's difficult to put in exact figures.

I think there's the huge cost here and I really, it can't be underestimated that time and effort to prepare and comply with this directive is going to be huge and the task involved in preparing for it can't be underestimated.

I think the cost...

will depend somewhat as well on the level of clarity we receive from the government.

IBEC has called for confirmation from the government that the directive or at least the provisions that go beyond the pre-employment elements I mentioned earlier, the

that those substantive significant provisions won't come into place until June 2027 at the earliest.