Mr. John King:

The joint labour committee system which, as stated by Deputy Calleary, was set up in the 1940s was designed to operate in sectors of the economy in which there were not high levels of trade union density and where it was felt workers would be prone to suffer the worst forms of exploitation and so on. This dates back to the Trade Disputes Act 1906. However, the joint labour committee system does not cover every worker in the economy. It covers only particular sectors of the economy. It is necessary that the minimum wage apply in at least those sectors of the economy that are not covered by a joint labour committee. During the period between the introduction of the minimum wage in 2000 and the collapse of the JLC system in 2011, only a small percentage of the Irish workforce was covered by the national minimum wage. Following the troika process in 2010 and the High Court decision in this area, tens of thousands of workers failed to be covered by that protection. They lost all of their conditions of employment and were collapsed to levels of the national minimum wage. We want to put in place forms of engagement for those workers which ensure they get minimum legally enforceable conditions of employment, which is more than just about the minimum hourly rate of pay. Within this collective bargaining process can begin a process of engagement with employers within industries to bring people, by agreement, towards a living wage as distinct from €8.65 per hour with no frills attached.

On the PRSI issue, the Government introduced a favourable PRSI rate, in addition to the VAT rate, for employers whose workers earn less than €356 per week. In other words, employers would pay less PRSI in respect of employees earning less than €356 per week. The evidence is that this facilitated a move towards the creation of part-time employment, which is one of the reasons for the level of under-employment and incentivised zero-hour type contracts. While this was reversed in 2014 significant damage had been already done to people on full-time contracts, in that they lost hours and were displaced. My commentary in regard to Ireland's PRSI levels relative to our European partners stacks up, notwithstanding that which may have taken place with the PRSI rate.

Employers in this jurisdiction pay much less than their counterparts in most of our European Union trading partners.