Gender pay gap revealed at top of Enterprise Ireland and IDA

Just eight of the 25 people earning more than €150,000 at Enterprise Ireland and the IDA are women, according to figures provided by the two State agencies.

Of the 109 staff members that had pay packages of over €100,000 in both organisations, 42 of them are female, according to data released under FOI. This is despite the majority of staff of both Enterprise Ireland and the IDA being women.

Men are, however, much more likely to be among the big earners with female staff outnumbering males only in annual salary brackets of up to €75,000.

Enterprise Ireland

At Enterprise Ireland, of the 755 staff, 434 or 57% are female. It has 12 staff earning €150,000-€200,000 of whom nine are men and three are women.

Three people are paid €125,000-€150,000, two women and one man, while 61 different members of staff are paid between €100,000-€125,000, 23 women and 38 men. Another 264 employees earn €75,000-€100,000 - 114 women and 150 men.

In the bracket €50,000-€75,000, there are 198 staff –  144 women and 54 men. And in the category of the 217 employees earning below €50,000, 148 are women and just 69 are men.

Enterprise Ireland said the salary figures are based on a person’s true salary relative to how many hours they work.

“For example, if Employee A is in a salary range of €75,000 to €99,999 but only works part-time at an FTE of 0.5, we have included them in their actual earnings/salary band of €0 to €49,999.” 

IDA

At the IDA, from a workforce of 327 full-time equivalent employees, there are 197 females working with the agency and 130 males. The IDA said it has 13 staff earning between €150,000 and €200,000 - eight men and five women.

It has no staff in the €125,000 to €150,000 category, according to the breakdown released. In the €100,000-€125,000 bracket, there were 20 staff with a relatively even split of 11 men and nine women.

For those earning €75,000 to €100,000, men outnumbered women with 43 men on salaries in that range and 37 females. The IDA said that of the 96 staff paid between €50,000 and €75,000, just 27 were men and 69 were female.

For those on salaries of under €50,000, there were 41 males and 77 females, according to the agency.

Both the IDA and Enterprise Ireland said they had no staff in receipt of salaries of more than €200,000.

Asked about the higher number of female employees in lower-paid positions, a spokeswoman for the IDA said: “All staff, male and female, are paid equally in IDA according to their pay grade, as set down by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform."

It said it will report on its gender pay gap analysis before the end of the year.

Enterprise Ireland also said it will publish a gender pay gap report later this year "which will outline further initiatives to positively impact gender pay balance across the agency".

Reporting: The Irish Examiner