Gender Pay Gap Information Bill 2019: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2021-05-19
============================================================

Roderic O'Gorman (GP), Dublin West

I am of the view that the strengthening which we have just agreed to under amendment No. 13, by giving those extra powers to IHREC to take a case to the High Court, where IHREC believes the seriousness and the egregiousness, perhaps, of the breach of the legislation of these reporting provisions by a particular employer warrants going to the High Court and warrants that very significant sanction, both legally and from the point of view of publicity, in the form of a ruling of contempt of court by the High Court, is a significant enough enforcement power. As such, I am not inclined to accept the Deputy's amendment. This is a very significant additional power, that is, enforcement through not just the Circuit Court but also the High Court, that we are giving to IHREC, which we all recognise to be an independent body and the expert on human rights and equality provision in the country. It is best placed to make determinations on pursuing enforcement actions under this legislation. I do not propose to accept the amendment.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-05-19