Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald has agreed to talk to IMPACT about its call for gender pay gap reporting laws after the union sought a meeting. The union has also provoked a huge response to its social media campaign, which calls for legislation to make employers publish details of their gender pay gaps.

Similar laws recently went live in the UK, prompting the Guardian’s Alexandra Topping to say the move “could do more to reduce the earnings gulf between men and women than four decades of equality legislation.” Ireland’s gender pay gap is stuck at around 14%.

The Programme for Government commits the Irish administration to “promote wage transparency by requiring companies with 50 or more employees to complete a wage survey.” But IMPACT says it must go further and require them to publish the data, rather than just collect it.

IMPACT’s #clockedout social media campaign, which has won huge support, has focussed on the idea that women effectively work 71 minutes for free each working day when compared to their male counterparts. In other words, they are ‘clocked out by the pay gap’ at 15:50 each day.

Last month, Labour leader Brendan Howlin asked Taoiseach Enda Kenny during leaders’ questions to support IMPACT’s call for new laws. IMPACT then welcomed the publication of a Labour Bill that aims to introduce gender pay gap reporting in Ireland. The union has called for cross-party support for the legislation.

IMPACT official Ger O’Brien said Ireland would benefit from similar transparency. “The disclosure of data like this is key to addressing the gender pay gap. What gets measured gets done, and publishing this kind of information would represent a real and concrete action on the part of employers, which would go a long way towards achieving the ultimate goal of equal pay for men and women,” she said.