I have worked in a consultancy role for more than two years. I was shocked and upset to discover that a male colleague, doing work very similar to mine, is being paid more than €10,000 more.
I only found out because my male colleagues and I (the only woman) were open about salaries. I had assumed there was a standard pay scale. When I was promoted to my current level, my salary was fixed at the starting point, with no negotiation allowed.
An experienced former colleague, also a woman, shared that she had started at an even lower salary than me, despite similar responsibilities and having worked in the industry, while a male colleague with comparable experience started at the much higher salary.
Very unfortunately, this is not an isolated case in my current job situation, where a woman progresses much more slowly up the ranks than a male colleague.
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At this point, the process for addressing this with my employer and achieving resolution feels unclear and daunting because I don’t want to burn any bridges, but it’s extremely important that my work, and the work of future women colleagues, is adequately recognised and rewarded to a similar degree that it is for male colleagues.
How can I approach my employer about this?
Pay disparity between genders in the private sector, despite those affected having similar experience and qualifications, is far more common than one might think, even with “very clear” laws on the issue.
That is according to Michelle Halloran, independent HR consultant and workplace investigator of Halloran HR Resolutions, who says gender is one of the nine protected grounds of discrimination under the Employment Equality Acts.
First and foremost, she advises raising the issue informally with a line manager or with their HR department.
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Should raising the issue informally fail, other options include a formal grievance in writing to their HR department and, if it remains unresolved, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) can investigate such claims.
“The law is really clear on this,” she says.
However, she says the employee in question must be able to establish that they have roughly the same amount of experience and qualifications as a male coworker who is paid more.
“So if I’ve got two years of experience and you’ve got 10, you deserve to be on a higher rate of pay, and that’s allowed.
“But if we’ve both got two years of experience and similar qualifications and there’s no obvious explanation for the differential then it can definitely be challenged,” she says.
They must also be able to prove that they are doing a job “identical or very similar in value to the company”, she says.
The issue, as described by the reader, happens in the private sector “a lot”, she says.
“A classic one is the employer saying it’s not any of their concern what other people earn, and that they negotiate with each person individually,” she says, adding that, if there is a question of gender discrimination, “it absolutely becomes their concern”.
“All the research suggests that men are much better at demanding money than women; women tend to undervalue themselves professionally,” she says.
Halloran adds that HR departments should be carrying out yearly audits of rates of pay to ensure no anomalies have crept in.
“It’s got to be fair, it’s got to be based on merit and experience,” she says.
A key development in this area is that Ireland must transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive into law by June 7th, 2026, says Damien McCarthy, founder and chief executive of consultancy firm, HR Buddy.
This means employers will be obliged to provide salary ranges in job ads and will ban them from asking about a candidate’s pay history.
It will also give employees the right to information about pay levels and comparable pay, and will require pay assessments if a significant gender pay gap exists and cannot be justified, he says.
“There are big changes coming here to counteract the historic problem of pay secrecy and possible gender pay discrimination,” he says.
Like Halloran, he advises against complaining to the WRC as a first port of call.
“I have seen many examples of this over the years where employees know they are not being paid equally,” he says, adding that this is not always down to “direct discrimination”.
“Sometimes it’s down to disorganisation and a lack of transparent pay or promotional structures,” he says.
He advises attempting to address the issue with a manager directly, saying: “In my experience, the majority of these types of disgruntlements can resolve through that avenue.”
