Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

No matter how one tries to dress up the Government's review or reform of the JLCs - many Government Deputies have done so - it is nothing more than a despicable attack on the lowest paid, vulnerable workers in our society. It is an attack that has been dictated by the EU-IMF vultures who are demanding that working people and the vulnerable in society should pay off the gambling debts of bankers and speculators. The same super-wealthy elites who caused the crisis in the first place are now taking advantage of it to make the poor poorer and ensure that the rich get richer.

This review is not designed to create jobs, as the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and the Government have suggested. Quite frankly, only the deluded or the completely dishonest would suggest that it is. The review will not create jobs, but it will create unemployment. Deputy Donohoe asked us to look at the facts. We should look at them and they will bear out what I and other Deputies in the United Left Alliance and Technical Group have said.

Following newspaper leaks that came from within the IMF, we know the fund wanted the abolition of the JLCs and EROs altogether. We also know that multimillionaire owners of fast-food chains and hotels, as well as employers' organisations such as the Irish Hotels' Federation, want the JLCs and EROs to be weakened or destroyed. Meanwhile, they moan about the need to cut wages. The review pressure therefore is not coming from a desire to protect the pay and conditions of ordinary workers; it is coming from those who want to dismantle the few inadequate protections that exist for ordinary workers. Such workers in retail outlets, hotels, hairdressing salons and the construction sector most certainly need protection. The facts bear this out.

Government Deputies have not responded seriously to a survey by the Migrants Rights' Centre. This showed that in 2007, 53% of the workers surveyed earned less than the minimum hourly wage, 45% worked nine or more hours per day, 44% did not get rest breaks, 85% did not receive extra pay for Sunday work or overtime pay, 48% did not receive bank holiday pay, 34% did not receive their annual leave entitlements, 51% did not receive a pay-slip and 84% did not receive a contract or terms of employment. It goes and on. These workers need more protection from unscrupulous employers, yet this review is about removing the utterly inadequate protections for downtrodden, vulnerable and exploited workers.

The IMF and EU want to suck dry these vulnerable workers in order to pay off the bankers' bad gambling debts. It is utterly shameful that politicians in this Chamber, who are paid €92,000 a year, plus expenses of €2,000 a week for a TD, €3,000 for a Minister and €4,000 for the Taoiseach, want to cut the wages of workers who must live on €200, €300 or €400 a week. The same politicians never work on Saturdays or Sundays, but they want to cut the wages of workers who are earning virtually nothing. These workers have to work every day, including Sundays, cleaning toilets. In addition, they are washing plates in the same restaurants enjoyed by well-paid politicians and bankers. The central justification that is put forward for all this is that it will create jobs, but it is dishonest nonsense to claim that is its real motivation.

On a number of occasions, the Minister, Deputy Bruton, has suggested that there is some sort of connection between wage rates in the sectors covered by JLCs and REAs, and the fact that there is massive unemployment in these sectors. It is utterly dishonest to suggest that somehow there is a connection between these workers' wages and unemployment. The Minister and everyone else knows that there is unemployment in those sectors because of the economic collapse brought about by the reckless gambling and speculation of bankers, developers, speculators and the super-wealthy elite who have brought this country to its knees. The situation has been worsened by the austerity demanded by the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund which are sucking money from the pockets of poor people, the low paid and middle-income families. Consequently, they cannot spend it in shops and businesses.

One does not have to be an economics expert to see what is happening. One only has to walk though any village, town or city centre to see that consumer demand has collapsed. That is because ordinary working people who used to spend in those shops and businesses no longer have the money to do so. They have lost their jobs, their social welfare has been cut and the universal social charge has been imposed on them, so they have no spending money. As a result, the shops and businesses they used to frequent have had to sack workers. That is the problem. The idea that sucking more money from the pockets of low-paid works will improve the situation is utter nonsense and the Minister knows it. It will make the situation much worse by accelerating a downward spiral into an economic black hole. We are all worried about small and medium-sized enterprises experiencing difficulties and struggling to cope. We accept that they have difficulties but we know that the way to deal with that is not by attacking low paid workers. Why does the Minister not deal with the rates issue? Why does he not do something about that if he wants to give these small businesses a break? Why do we not have progressive rates? Is it right that small businesses that are struggling pay the same level of rates as multinational chains such as McDonald's, the banks and big multiples such as Tesco? Why does the Minister not jack up the rates applying to, for example, Tesco, which is making hundreds of millions in profits, to reduce the rates applying to small businesses that are struggling to cope and being driven out of business? One need not be a radical or a socialist to do that. It is done in France and Scotland and it has helped sustain and stimulate the small business and small shop retail sector.

Moving beyond that, if the Minister is to deal with the unemployment crisis and, if, as we all know, the unemployment crisis arises from a collapse in demand, the only way he can resolve it is by stimulating demand. He has to put money back into people's pockets and he has to stop handing over the investment funds that could be used to stimulate the economy and develop industry. He has to stop sending that money to bank vaults in France, Germany and Britain where it is being hoarded; the super wealthy generally are hoarding money and strangling economies like ours.

This is unbelievable. People who voted for the Labour Party voted for it because they, including these vulnerable workers, expected that of all people the Labour Party could be trusted to protect their interests. Now it is backing a move that attacks their pay and conditions, which is based on the idea that the super wealthy multiple chains owned by millionaires should have an inability to pay clause. I ask the Labour Party where is the inability to pay clause for working people who cannot take any more, who are being crucified by its cuts, who cannot pay the bills at the end of the week, who cannot pay their mortgages or rent and whose children are being forced to leave the country? Where is inability to pay clause for those people? There is none, but we have to give an inability to pay clause to millionaires. It is shameful. I appeal to the Labour Party Deputies to remember their roots, to remember who elected them and put them in here because the people will not forget if they betray them on this issue.

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