LAST UPDATE | 4 May 2025

Paul O'Donoghue

THERE ARE FEW true taboos left in Irish public life – it’s time for one of the last ones left to be toppled.

We’re not talking sex or religion. This is something far more sensitive – how much cash goes into your bank account.

Plenty of Irish people don’t know what their friends and family earn. More importantly, they don’t know what their co-workers take home.

A recent survey from Indeed put some numbers on this. Just one in four people believe there is full pay transparency in their workplace. Over half think discussing salaries is taboo. Just 16% said they’d tell their colleagues their salary if asked.

You get the idea. It’s secretive. It’s something Irish people don’t tend to talk about. And it’s something which is set to change.

The EU has introduced a new directive on pay transparency, in a move aimed at reducing the gender pay gap.

But one of the most significant measures is that companies will now have to publish salary ranges for most advertised roles.

This will be a huge change for jobseekers. Currently, very few private employers reveal salary scales to applicants.

Of course, this can have many negative knock-on impacts. The most obvious one is employees getting lowballed.

This is where applicants get pressured into accepting pay which is actually below what their experience merits – something which is more likely to happen when they’re applying blind, without knowing a firm’s salary scales.

The reasons why companies don’t publish salaries also tend to line up with this. Most of them boil down to – the firm doesn’t want to spend more money.

However, it can also backfire on businesses. Multiple surveys show that job hunters are less likely to apply to roles where a salary range is not advertised.

Fewer applicants obviously means companies are likely to miss out on better hires, potentially shooting themselves in the foot in the long term. Although, let’s be realistic – the focus is likely on saving money in the short term.

This is even recognised in the EU pay transparency directive, which states: “The lack of information on the envisaged pay range of a position creates an information asymmetry which limits the bargaining power of applicants for employment.”

The directive, published in 2023, has to be transposed into national law by member states by 7 June, 2026.

Irish law

The Irish government looks like it’s ahead of the curve here, having published a Bill in January which aims to do just that – well ahead of the deadline.

With most EU directives, there’s normally some interpretation on how exactly they will be implemented into national law. They don’t always abide by the spirit of the original directive.

But Ireland looks to do just that – the Bill specifically states that employers will be required “to provide information about salary levels or ranges either in the job advertisement or in advance of the interview”.

This could still have been worked around somewhat by employers. For example, not publishing their salary scale, and just giving a vague range to applicants later in the hiring process.

Which is why it’s encouraging that the Bill states that Ireland’s proposed amendment “goes beyond what is provided for in the [EU] directive, in that it requires employers to provide the information in the advertisement”.

The measure is also expected to apply to existing employees. That is, if you’ve been working at a business for a few years, you will be able to request the salary range across the company for your role.

It’s not clear yet how detailed the information will be – will salaries be in bands of €5,000, or €20,000? But it’s a step in the right direction.

And it’s something that will come as a major shift for Irish private companies – it’s estimated that less than half of job ads currently publish salary figures.

Another key measure which was contained in the Bill, which employees should be aware of – companies will no longer be able to ask about pay history.

The draft legislation states that employers will be prohibited from asking job applicants “about their own pay history or their current rate of pay”.

Again, the suspicion is that companies normally do this to ensure they’re not paying “too much” to prospective candidates.

And again, this measure is supposed to ensure the balance of power is not tipped too heavily in favour of the business.

Irish companies have been warned that this runs the risk of provoking more pay equality cases, where workers take legal action if they learn they’re being underpaid.

Experts have said that businesses should “change their pay model” in advance of this – ie, make sure there aren’t big gaps in employee pay for the same role.

Employer unease

Apart from the risk of legal action, some employers have expressed unease about salary ranges being published. There have been hints that the move could create conflict between workers.

But it’s worth remembering that this is hardly an unprecedented move for Ireland. The civil service publishes the pay scales for the vast majority of its positions, and somehow manages to still function.

Away from Ireland, in the likes of Sweden, Norway and Finland, information about every individual’s income is publicly accessible. These are not countries known for their low wages or poor economies.

Finally, it’s worth remembering what triggered the introduction of the EU’s pay transparency directive in the first place – the gender pay gap.

It’s estimated that, on average, women earn about 12% less than men across the bloc. Ireland’s pay gap is slightly lower, coming in at 10%.

As discussed previously, the single biggest impact on this looks to be childcare.

That is, men and women earn almost the same for the first few years of their careers. But once women have children, their earnings drop sharply as they work fewer hours. Women then tend to spend more time on childcare, while men work for longer.

While this is widely thought to account for most of the male/female pay differential, it is suspected that the likes of unconscious bias could also have an impact.

Gender pay gap reporting is already mandatory for large companies operating in Ireland, and the measure is set to continue to be rolled out to smaller businesses.

The move should show whether there actually is a difference in the pay rates for similar roles, or not.

But whatever the finding, the directive is set to benefit plenty of men, as well as women.

The pay transparency directive and the publication of salary scales makes things much more straightforward for job hunters.

Coupled with the ban on asking for salary history, it should give employees that bit more protection from companies trying to pinch a few pennies with lowball offers.