Our Ireland

While researching some statistics for a project I came across the listings for Average Industrial Earnings in Ireland listed from 1998 - 2005.

The figures are disturbing because they suggest wide-scale discrimination of a large part of the Irish workforce based on gender and gender alone. The figures consistently speak for themselves, here's the latest for 05:

2005 figures:

• Adult Males - 609.91 euro
• Adult Females - 430.23 euro

How, in this day and age, can a 'civilized' and 'equal opportunities' nation discriminate against such a large section of our society? Surely this is state sanctioned. I'm hardly the first person to notice the huge gap in earnings between the genders, someone in government must surely have added 'one-n-one' together. If government has not put a stop to this obvious discrimination of women in the Irish workforce I'd call that state sanctioned (or am I crazy). And is the bottom-line so important to employers in this country that they are prepared to rip-off their female employees? To deny them an fair share for their efforts? Doubtless there are many men and women represented in these figures that do the exact same job, with the same educational qualifications and responsibilities.

For the full list from 1998 follow this link to the CSO. http://www.cso.ie/statistics/indearnings.htm .

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