[Translation: Last Wednesday was International Equal Pay Day. We have long struggled to achieve equal pay for equal work. Even so, women still receive less remuneration than men in all regions of the world. The gender pay gap is estimated at 20% globally. The Department for the Economy announced last year that women’s salary here was 7·8% below that received by men, regardless of the work pattern involved. Therefore, if a man here gets one pound for doing work, a woman here gets only a little over 92 pence for doing the same work. Companies here are under no obligation to report the gender pay gap, unlike those in the Twenty-six Counties or companies in England. If a woman applies for a job in Limerick or Liverpool, she will know what the hourly pay gap is between men and women in that company and also the gap in the bonuses that they receive. If the same woman applies for the same job in Larne, however, she will be unaware of those differences. Members on all sides of the House agree on equal pay for equal work. However, despite that, progress to narrow the pay gap is very slow. The pay gap here will not be filled until we have a strategy on gender equal pay and a plan to implement that strategy. We will also need to introduce regulations on reporting the gender pay gap so that companies become part of the solution, as is the case in the rest of this island and, indeed, in the rest of Europe.]