Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

I refer to a statement made by the task group:

We endorse the conclusions reached by Kevin Duffy and Frank Walsh that reducing JLC rates to the minimum wage level will have important distributional consequences without having any substantial effect on employment. We are concerned that recent proposals reportedly made by Minister Bruton are not in line with the Duffy Walsh report. The evidence presented in the report should not be ignored. Minister Bruton's proposals, if implemented, would reduce the pay of low earners. These workers, by necessity, spend a higher proportion of their income on consumption and consequently, cutting their wages will significantly reduce spending in the economy at a time when the savings rate is already very high and domestic demand has collapsed. Any amendments to wage setting mechanisms should ensure that the incomes of vulnerable low earners are fully protected and that demand in the economy is not further impaired.

I commend Deputy Willie O'Dea for highlighting the fact that wage cuts are adding to some of our problems and causing domestic demand to fall. I employ 52 people in the restaurant industry and can assure the House that JLC rates are not my problem. I have other problems in that the position has been very difficult for restaurants in the past couple of years. However, under no circumstances have the rules of the JLCs been causing problems for our business. I do not expect people to live on less then they are already earning. There is a big difference between people working in the restaurant industry and low paid jobs and those working in the construction sector. Such people need the protection of the State. We cannot depend on big business, or any business for that matter. There are plenty of good, decent business people, but workers will not be treated fairly by everybody. That is not rocket science.

Given the problems, the restaurant industry is going through a tough time. However, rates have reached a point where they are equal to 20% of the rents payable. There is still no connection between rates and the markets. I also have huge energy costs. In the case of one of my restaurants, I am paying €18,000 a year in energy costs, plus insurance and maintenance costs. My waste disposal costs have decreased recently because they were astronomical. I hope the Government will not allow a monopoly to develop in the waste management sector in the city because this was the case in the past. The rates charged have now been halved because the market has been opened to competition in the past couple of years. However, there is a threat that it could be closed again.

The notion that somebody working for €365 a week, who might be married with a child and might need a car to get to work, would have any extras he or she might earn threatened is outrageous. I cannot understand where that thinking is coming from.

There is a view that big money is paid for working on Sundays. The rate is time plus one third; it was never double. If an employer pays €2 an hour over the minimum wage and has a contract with an employee, he or she does not have to pay a rate of time and one third for Sundays. An employer can pay the basic rate across the board if he or she pays €2 above the minimum wage. An employer cannot complain about Sundays.

A Deputy on the other side of the House claimed that only Friday, Saturday and Sunday are busy days in this country. That is not true. I can tell her that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are more lucrative days than Sunday in Dublin and Wexford. Deputy McHugh claimed the minimum wage in the construction sector was €20 per hour. It is actually €13.77.

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