by Robert Sheen, CEO and Founder of Trusaic
To date, much of the conversation around the EU Pay Transparency Directive (EUPTD) in Ireland has centred on the pre-employment pay transparency elements, which were included in the government’s January 2025 draft bill.
The Department of Children, Disability and Equality (DCDE) has stated that implementation of the Directive will be phased, and that employers will not be penalised for not having all elements of the Directive in place by June 2026. On 19 May 2026 Ibec reported that the pre-employment obligations that were originally set out in the January 2025 draft bill will now be transposed into Irish law via a separate Pay Transparency Bill. In the meantime, Ireland is one of many EU Member States that will not make the 7 June, 2026 transposition deadline set by the EU Commission.
Due to a lack of clarity — and concerns over new requirements for all employers that include a salary history ban and salary range disclosures on job postings — Ibec formally called for a one-year delay earlier this year. This is understandable, as recent data from Mercer found that just 6% of Irish businesses are prepared for a June deadline of those requirements.
The larger focus for businesses, however, should be on Article 7, the Directive’s “Right to Information” (RTI) requirement, which the government intends to address in its next draft that will include the remaining pay reporting requirements. RTI is one of the more operationally complex elements of the Directive and the first-of-its kind obligation in global pay transparency.
It introduces something structurally different: a transparency mechanism initiated by employees themselves, one that demands organisations respond to individual pay information requests quickly, accurately, and at scale, with comparison data based on the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value.
From Periodic Reporting to On-Demand Transparency
The EUPTD introduces gender pay gap reporting for its members as well — something Irish organisations with 50+ employees are already required to do annually.
The RTI requirement, however, is something else entirely. It is a live, employee-triggered entitlement with a legal deadline attached.
Under Article 7, any worker may request in writing:
- Their individual pay level (gross annual and gross hourly pay)
- The average pay levels for workers doing the same work or work of equal value, broken down by sex
Employers must respond within a reasonable period — and no later than two months from the date of request. Employers are also required to remind workers annually that this right exists and explain how to exercise it.
This is not a passive reporting obligation. It is an enforceable, on-demand transparency mechanism, and it comes with significant inherent risks.
The Data Complexity Problem
The definition of “pay” under the Directive is deliberately broad. Article 3(1)(a) covers “any other consideration, whether in cash or in kind, which a worker receives directly or indirectly” — meaning base salary alone is not sufficient. Bonuses, allowances, benefits in kind, overtime compensation, and pension contributions are all in scope.
For most Irish employers, this data does not live in a single system. Payroll, bonuses, equity awards, and benefits are often managed across different vendors and platforms. Producing an accurate, defensible RTI response requires aggregating actuals from all of these sources — not target or budgeted figures, but what was actually paid.
Benefits in kind present a particular challenge. Company cars, private medical insurance, and similar non-cash benefits require a consistent valuation methodology. Employers must ensure that methodology is comparable across worker categories, not just internally consistent.
The definitional picture is still developing across EU Member States. Some jurisdictions — Poland, Italy — are working toward excluding certain categories of benefit from the “pay” definition. Others, like the Netherlands, are anchoring reporting to individual-level payroll records while excluding items not tracked at that level (such as work-related cost reimbursements) or that are available to all employees in the same way.
Ireland’s own implementing legislation will determine the final scope, and additional guidance from the Department of Children, Disability and Equality is expected to follow.
The practical implication for Irish HR and reward teams: the gap between what your HRIS holds and what your payroll system captures needs to be audited and closed now.
The 60-Day Compliance Window
Two months may seem reasonable in isolation. In practice, it creates significant operational risk.
For a large Irish employer with several thousand employees, even a modest response rate — say, five per cent submitting requests within a short window — can generate hundreds of individual RTI obligations simultaneously. Manual workflows, spreadsheets, and ad hoc report generation will not scale to that volume without exposing the organisation to missed deadlines, inconsistent responses, and compliance failure.
There is a secondary complication: if an employee believes the information provided is incomplete or inaccurate, they are entitled to request reasonable clarification and to receive a substantiated reply — potentially with its own deadline attached.
A reactive, case-by-case approach is not viable at enterprise scale. The organisations that will manage this well are those that treat RTI as a process design challenge starting now, not a compliance exercise beginning when the first request arrives.
Some forward-looking organisations are already choosing a proactive model: making RTI reports accessible to all employees rather than waiting for requests to accumulate. This approach reduces administrative strain, manages employee expectations, and removes the inherent tension of responding under pressure.
RTI as a Gateway to Equal Pay Claims
One of the more consequential shifts introduced by the Directive is how it may enable employees to bring equal pay claims more effectively — particularly through the interaction between the RTI and the shift of the burden of proof under Article 18.
The Directive’s RTI requirement gives employees the right to request information about their pay and the average pay of comparable roles, broken down by gender. On paper, this is a transparency measure. In practice, it creates a structured pathway for employees to identify potential pay inequities.
Once that information is in hand, the next step becomes clearer. RTI provides a potential evidentiary foundation for an equal pay claim, if RTI reveals a gender pay gap, and an employer cannot adequately justify or explain the difference in pay based on objective, gender-neutral factors.
This is intentional by design, as it lowers the barrier for workers to seek compensation for disparities in pay due to discrimination.
Preparation Must Go Beyond Compliance
There is a dimension to Article 7 that goes beyond process readiness: the litigation and reputational risk that transparency creates when an organisation has not done the underlying analytical work.
Where RTI responses reveal unjustified pay gaps — as they inevitably will in many organisations — equal pay claims may follow. Workers’ representatives may become involved. Employee sentiment may shift if reports are delivered without context or explanation.
Transparency without preparation is not neutral. It carries risk. The organisations best positioned to navigate Article 7 are those that have conducted a defensible pay equity analysis before disclosures begin — identifying unjustified gaps, remediating them, and understanding what their data will show before employees see it.
Contextual narrative matters here too. Raw pay data, delivered without explanation, invites misinterpretation. Employers that accompany RTI responses with clear, plain-language explanations of how pay is determined — the criteria, the framework, the philosophy — will manage risk and employee trust more effectively than those that simply release the numbers.
What Irish Employers Should Do Now
Article 7 introduces a new era of employee-triggered pay transparency. It requires organisations to aggregate complex remuneration data, protect privacy, respond within strict timelines, and manage litigation and reputational risk — all while maintaining employee trust.
This is not simply a reporting obligation. It is an operational transformation. Here are initial steps Irish organisations can take:
- Audit your data architecture. Map the gap between what lives in your HRIS and what is captured in payroll systems. Non-cash benefits, individually negotiated allowances, and irregular payments are the most common problem areas.
- Define your worker categories. RTI responses are organised by comparable work based on work of equal value. Establishing and documenting those categories now — with gender-neutral criteria — reduces the risk of contested responses later.
- Establish internal thresholds for small groups. Develop a good-faith framework for determining when a worker category is too small to disclose pay data directly.
- Design response workflows before requests arrive. Build the process that will allow you to respond consistently, accurately, and within the two-month window — at volume, not just for one-off requests.
- Conduct a pay equity analysis. Understand your gaps before your employees do. Remediate where possible. Build the contextual narrative that will accompany disclosures.
While it’s increasingly clear Ireland will not have the RTI requirement in place in June 2026, organisations must be prepared to navigate it when the time comes.
About the author:
Robert Sheen is the founder and CEO of Trusaic, where he leads the company’s mission to help global enterprises make precise, compliant pay decisions at scale. Robert is recognised for advancing the future of pay equity and transparency, grounded in his belief that fair pay is a fundamental right and that accountability starts with the systems organisations use to make compensation decisions. He holds a JD from Loyola Law School and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance & Accounting from University of Southern California.
