Bank of Ireland listed on eurozone gender equality index

The listing comes ahead of Ireland’s first gender pay gap reporting season, which begins next month.

Bank of Ireland features alongside luxury brand owner LVMH and consumer goods giant Unilever on the Euronext Equileap Gender Equality Eurozone 100 index, launched on Tuesday.

Danone and Amundi, which employ a large number of staff in Ireland, are also on the list.

Firms are listed based on high scores across 19 criteria, including gender balance in the workforce and in leadership, equal pay, gender equality policies and transparency.

Bank of Ireland has been publishing voluntary pay gap reports for the last two years in Ireland.

In 2021, it showed men were earning, on average, 23.8pc more than women – a slight decrease on 2020.

In the UK, the bank’s pay gap was much higher last year, at 34.89pc, despite employing almost as many men as women across the business.

From Thursday, companies with more than 250 employees will be obliged to publish any differences between men’s and women’s hourly wages and bonuses in Ireland, along with the proportion of men and women at higher and lower pay levels.

The UK has had similar legislation in place since 2017.

An analysis of more than 50 Irish-based companies by Independent.ie – based on mandatory UK and voluntary Irish disclosures from 2021 – found that the pay gap here is around 16pc, in favour of men.

While not exhaustive, the research shows the largest gaps between men’s and women’s earnings are in law firms, transport companies, management consultants and banks.

A much larger study carried out by IrishJobs’s research arm, Universum, found a 16pc gender pay gap in Ireland in 2022, with the largest disparities in the IT sector.

The news comes as the Government’s retail banking review recommends the lifting of bankers’ pay and bonus caps, which were put in place after the 2009 bailouts.