The Government’s gender pay gap portal, which was supposed to be launched this autumn, will now only be available for a fraction of companies than had originally been expected as part of a pilot scheme.
In March, on International Women’s Day, the Department for Children, Disability and Equality announced that a “new gender pay gap reporting portal for 6,000 public and private sector organisations will be launched in the autumn”.
The portal would “for the first time, bring reports from all private and public sector organisations together”, the department said.
Under the Gender Pay Gap Information Act, companies with more than 150 employees were required to create and publish a report outlining their gender pay gap across a number of metrics as of 2024.
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This year, that was widened to encompass all organisations with more than 50 employees for the first time this November.
The department had estimated that 6,000 companies would be required to report into the portal. However, in a response to a query from a member of the public, the department said that the portal would now only open as a “pilot scheme” and will only be available to “select employers”.
The pilot will only be comprised of companies with more than 100 employees.
Instead of the 6,000 companies envisaged to report to the portal in Minister for Equality Norma Foley’s announcement in March, just 600-1,000 are now expected to be included.
The department has now said that “reporting through the Gender Pay Gap Portal will be mandatory for all employers with 50+ employees from 2026”.
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However, it had stated that regulations would be put in place to require organisations to report their data “in time for this year’s deadline of the end of November”.
Jennifer Keane, the founder of PayGap.ie, a website which has compiled pay gap data from individual reports, said she has been contacted by employers unsure of the delivery of the Government portal.
She said there was “confusion and concern” among employers, many of whom had contacted her “seeking information on where the portal will be and how it will work”.
Ms Keane said it was “unfair on these companies to be sharing this information so late, with the reporting deadline of November just weeks away”.
“I am disappointed with the scaled back delivery of a pilot portal programme, which seems quite a step down from the promised full public gender pay gap portal,” she said.
“I feel the legislation has been overlooked in general, and the failure to deliver what was promised in March does little to reassure me on this front.”
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When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the department said the intention was to have “a centralised gender pay gap portal in place this autumn for employers to report directly to Government, and for the general public to view and compare the information.
“This gender pay gap portal has been developed and is now in the final stages of testing, with a view to launching it before the end of this year.”
The spokesperson added while “there is a legislative basis for mandatory reporting” to the gender pay gap portal by employers, “certain issues were raised” following engagement with the Attorney General’s office in recent months.
“It has been confirmed that further legislation is needed for employers to be required to report in full into the portal on a mandatory basis. This legislation is currently in development and the Department is exploring the potential for the necessary legislation to be included in a miscellaneous bill to expedite the passage of this legislation.”
The department said mandatory reporting into the portal would begin in 2026, once that legislation was in place.
“However, given that the portal has been developed, the Department is keen to have it ready for use before the end of this year. It is exploring the option of opening the portal for employers to use it on a voluntary basis. Discussions have been held with IBEC and the 30% Club to this effect,” it added.
