RTÉ row just the tip of the iceberg for Irish workplaces

RTÉ has announced a review of gender equality at the organisation following the revelation that a massive gender pay chasm exists among its newsreaders. Now, other companies should follow suit.

Sharon Ní Bheoláin never betrayed it, but she must have been silently seething for years. Her co-anchor on ‘Six One’, Bryan Dobson, routinely appears on the list of top 10 earners at the national broadcaster, but she never made the grade.

According to the ‘Sunday Independent’, Mr Dobson earns up to €80,000 more than Ms Ní Bheoláin – despite the fact that they perform almost identical duties, presenting a similar number of outside broadcasts, news specials and breaking news programmes.

Mr Dobson has been in the role for nine years more than Ms Ní Bheoláin, but can this additional length of service really account for such a huge discrepancy in pay?

Or, is it the fact that, as a woman, Ms Ní Bheoláin is valued less by the organisation and her pay level reflects this fact? In the context of RTÉ having recorded a €19.7m deficit last year, is it the case that pay-related savings are predominantly and disproportionately being gouged from its female employees?

RTÉ will deny that it engages in any overt discrimination, but the BBC is also grappling with a similar scandal in the UK, in which it was revealed that its male presenters earn multiples of their female colleagues’ pay packets – despite doing the same job.

As a public service broadcaster, substantially funded by licence fee money that is extracted with great difficulty from the public, RTÉ has an obligation to be absolutely transparent about pay grades and its treatment of staff.

Any suggestion that male staff members receive an automatic pay boost, by virtue simply of their gender, cannot be allowed to fester. Not least because of the damage it will do to its newsroom and its attempts to hold discriminatory practices by other State institutions to account.

For that reason, it is crucial RTÉ now follows the example of the BBC and publishes details of the pay scales of a far greater number of both employees and private contractors than just those lucky enough to feature in its list of top 10 earners. This is the only way that female staff members can be assured they are being treated on a par with their male colleagues. If RTÉ is not fully transparent, then the implication will be that it has something to hide.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten has suggested that RTÉ publishes the salary of anyone earning above €100,000, and this would certainly be a good start.

However, this doesn’t go far enough. In the UK, from 2018, companies with more than 250 employees will be compelled to publish the salaries and bonuses of their female and male staff.

This league table of some 8,000 companies will allow staff, and members of the public, to identify the biggest offenders when it comes to persistent gender pay gaps.

Information like this will be a powerful weapon in the fight for equal pay and conditions.

It will allow staff members to agitate at work for improved pay and conditions, and will also facilitate the public in supporting those companies that take their commitments to supporting gender equality seriously.

Given the current Government is such a fan of naming and shaming welfare cheats, surely it should equally support measures that allow for public shaming of those companies, both public and private, that discriminate against their female staff members?

Perhaps Leo Varadkar’s Government could take some inspiration from Iceland, where, from 2022, companies with more than 25 staff will have to prove they pay employees the same regardless of gender, sexuality or ethnicity. The law would require companies to go through an audit in order to receive equal-pay certification to avoid large fines.

THE gender pay gap is not just an issue for RTÉ and the BBC.

It is pervasive across the labour market, despite the fact that more women than men leave college with third-level qualifications.

What the RTÉ and BBC furore shows is that being an accomplished woman in a well-paid job is no guarantee that male colleagues will not be remunerated better.

Last year, a study by recruitment agency Morgan McKinley found that the average earnings gap in Ireland stood at a whopping 20pc, with female professionals earning on average some €12,500 less than their male colleagues when bonuses and salaries were taken into account.

Bizarrely, this gap expanded if women spent longer in education, with a gap of 10pc for employees holding a BSc degree ballooning to 33pc for Executive MBA holders.

“The most surprising aspect of the findings of our research is that it would appear that the higher their educational attainment, and the more experience they have, women find themselves being paid even less than their male counterparts,” said Karen O’Flaherty, of Morgan McKinley.

The controversy swirling around RTÉ at the moment is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the divergent treatment of men and women in workplaces across Ireland.

Now that the issue is firmly back on the agenda, given the highprofile nature of the RTÉ personalities involved, the Government needs to do more than mutter mere platitudes about gender equality, and work towards introducing concrete measures to ensure all companies treat their staff members fairly.

A study showed the average earnings gap in Ireland stood at a whopping 20pc