ICTU: ‘Men still being paid more than women’

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has claimed that women are still being paid less than men in Ireland, despite 30 years of equality legislation.

Figures presented to an ICTU conference today showed that men were being paid an average of almost 15% more than women in 2000.

ICTU said the figures showed that legal measures on their own were not enough to address the problem and that attitudes within the workplace must also change.

Today’s ICTU conference on the gender pay gap was organised to coincide with International Women’s Day.

Helen Russell from the Government’s Economic and Social Research Institute said the pay gap between men and women in Ireland was the fourth-widest in Europe.

She said that improved childcare facilities, extra parental leave and more flexible working hours for both men and women would go some way towards narrowing this gap.