Youth, Women & Gender Equality, Romania, Ireland, Bulgaria

Public service unions, including Fórsa and SIPTU, have met with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for discussions on dealing more rapidly with the problem of pay equity for new entrants to the public service. In the pay changes implemented as part of austerity measures in 2011, two additional points were added to the first two pay grades for new starters. This means that they need two more years to reach the top of their pay grades compared to higher grades. The unions argue that with economic growth and higher tax revenues, it should be possible to tackle this issue in advance

(May 2017) Trade unions are showing their support for a legislative initiative on gender pay information that is going through the Senate.The Gender Pay Gap Information Bill 2017, if made into law, would require organisations with more than 50 employees to publish regular wage surveys aimed at measuring their internal gender pay gaps.Unions believe that this will be a signifcant boost to the campaign to reduce the gender pay gap.