Ireland

Impact date: June 2025 (Snapshot date) and November 2025 (Published report). The Pay Transparency Bill has not yet passed In 2025, the requirement to report on gender pay gaps will apply to more businesses. If an organization has 50 or more employees (whether in the public or private sector), they will now be required to publicly disclose their gender pay gap data. This is a significant expansion from the previous threshold of 150 or more employees.

Organizations with 150 or more employees had to report on their gender pay gap by December 2024. It is now anticipated that in 2025 the reporting deadline will be brought forward to November.

The report published needs to include several key metrics:

• The difference between the average (mean and median) hourly pay of your male and female employees
• The difference between the average (mean and median) bonuses paid to men and women
• The percentage of men and women who received bonuses and benefits-in-kind
• How the workforce is divided into four pay bands from lowest to highest paid, and the proportion of men and women in each band

On 18 February 2025, the Government’s Spring Legislative Programme noted that heads were in preparation on the Pay Transparency Bill which will transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive and aims to ensure pay transparency for roles advertised by business and public sector organizations. This follows the previous Bill lapsing with the dissolution of Dáil Éireann on 8 November 2024.

Impact date: 30 September 2025 The Minister for Social Protection has signed a Commencement Order for the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 (the “Act”). Under the Commencement Order, 30 September 2025 has been marked as the official launch date for the new auto-enrolment system (which will be called My Future Fund). The National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (“NAERSA”), the supervisory body which will be responsible for overseeing the system, will be established with effect from 31 March 2025.

The Act establishes a new retirement savings scheme requiring both employers and employees to make mandatory contributions, starting at 1.5% of gross salary and increasing to 6% after ten years. The State will also contribute to the scheme. The scheme targets employees aged 23 to 60 who earn at least €20,000 annually and are not part of a qualifying occupational pension scheme. Employees will have the option to opt out after six months of participation.

In order to effect the provisions of the Act and My Future Fund, the Finance Act 2024 (the “Finance Act”) was enacted on 12 November 2024 and makes a number of amendments to the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (the “TCA”). The amendments to the TCA provide that employer contributions to My Future Fund will be allowed as a deductible expense for corporation tax purposes but any repayment of contributions to an employer will be taxed as a trade receipt. Further, employee contributions will not benefit from tax relief (with the State’s top-up contribution provided in lieu) but investment returns earned on funds within My Future Fund will be exempt from tax in the normal way. Additionally, upon retirement, participants may take up to 25% of their accrued fund as a tax-free lump sum with any balance withdrawn thereafter being liable to income tax under the PAYE system. Finally, any funds credited to a participant’s personal representative(s) on their death will also be subject to income tax; and benefits accrued under My Future Fund will be included for Standard Fund Threshold purposes.

Impact date: Awaited (drafting is underway) The Government has approved the drafting of the Employment (Restriction of Certain Mandatory Retirement Ages) Bill 2024 (the “Bill”). Should the legislation come into force, it would allow (but not compel) employees to continue working until the State pension age, which is currently 66 years old. Under the proposed legislation, an employer cannot set a mandatory retirement age below the State pension age if the employee does not consent to retire.

Under the current draft of the Bill, if an employee does not consent to retiring at their employer’s contractual retirement age, they must notify their employer in writing of that fact not less than three months prior to the contractual retirement date. If the employer has established different notice periods (e.g. by way of employee handbooks) the employee must give no less notice than that specified period, but the required notice period must not exceed six months.

Impact date: Further updates are awaited Under the Sick Leave Act 2022, employees are entitled to five days statutory sick leave per year, paid at 70% of normal pay up to a maximum of €110 a day. The initial allocation of three days set down in 2023 was increased by way of Ministerial Order to five days in 2024. It was anticipated that another Ministerial Order in 2025 would increase the allocation again to seven days. To date, this has not happened, though the Minister noted that a Ministerial Order does not have to be passed on 1 January.

It is important to note that where an employer provides a more favorable company sick pay scheme, employees are not entitled to benefit from both statutory sick pay and the company sick pay scheme.

Impact date: Further updates are awaited On 15 January 2025, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth published the General Scheme proposing amendments to a variety of Employment Equality Acts. Examples of the proposed amendments include:

• Insertion of pay transparency obligations under the EU Pay Transparency Directive
• Increased time limits for redress and increased redress amounts
• Removing the differential rates of pay for disabled persons
• Extending the jurisdiction of the WRC to include claims of prohibited conduct occurring at the point of entry to licensed premises

The Government’s Spring Legislative Programme published on 18 February 2025 notes that revised heads are in preparation, and so further updates are awaited.