Men get bigger bonuses than women at many of Ireland’s top businesses

A study of 2023 gender pay gap data by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that men were paid up to 70pc more than women at some companies.

All firms with 250 staff or more were required to report their pay and bonus gaps in December for the second year in a row following the introduction of new legislation.

CIPD director Mary Connaughton said the bonus gaps appeared even in sectors where women are evenly represented in the workforce.

“There are some organisations which would traditionally have a greater proportion of males employed, such as those in construction and finance, so that would push out the difference, but it’s harder to understand in others where the genders would be more evenly represented,” she said.

“We can see that some of the country’s top organisations are making progress in dealing with their overall gender pay gaps, but this large gap in some firms’ bonus schemes shows that the devil can be in the detail and all aspects of the topic must be taken into account.”

Ms Connaughton also said it was “worrying” that some of Ireland’s top legal firms have reported an increase in their average gender pay gaps for 2023.

Just one of the top legal firms in the country had a pay gap of less than 50pc last year.

However, some well-known organisations reported a narrowing of their gender pay gaps, CIPD said.

The Department of Transport, which had the highest pay gap of all government departments, saw its gap fall from more than 20pc in 2022 (in favour of men) to just over 13pc last year.

CIPD said pay gaps also narrowed significantly in gaming firm Flutter, construction firm BAM, Swedish interiors giant IKEA and computer firm Dell Technologies.

Microsoft in Ireland reduced its average bonus pay gap from 9.8pc to 1.6pc over the year.

Ms Connaughton said pay gaps are likely to be much higher when smaller firms start to report at the end of this year.

According to the Central Statistics Office, small and medium firms have an average gender pay gap of 20pc, more than double the national average. The overall pay gap in Ireland was 9.6pc in 2022, the CSO said, lower than the latest figures for the EU of around 13pc.

“The good news for workers is that the boards of organisations now need to sign off on gender pay gap reports that are becoming publicly accessible,” Ms Connaughton said.

“This means that gender issues, including pay, are getting more attention at board level than ever before, which is a welcome development and we look forward to seeing more and more organisations prioritising this area as a result.”