Ms Gráinne O'Toole:

Migration has been occurring over the past 15 years and low pay is pervasive, based on the evidence we have gathered in studies of the restaurant sector in recent years. Au-pair work is a new issue for domestic work with its high levels of exploitation. We have also conducted a survey of more than 100 workers in the care, security, restaurant and domestic work sectors.

It shows precarious situations such that more than 50% of those workers earn just €300 a week. They are not able to get enough hours on which to live and to earn a sustainable wage. The minimum wage is very important to us and it has been very important to try to enforce rights for workers, to try to ensure compliance with the minimum wage. We believe that an increase in the minimum wage will raise the standards. As all speakers have eloquently outlined, it would make a big difference. However, if the Bill focuses only on minimum wage issues, it will lose an opportunity. Many migrants have become Irish citizens and they are in the labour market but discrimination at recruitment is an issue as is discrimination in the workplace. Exploitation is still prevalent as we will show in our study when it is published in coming month. I refer to the difficulty of workers being able to claim their rights in non-unionised sectors. Ms Esther Lynch referred to the fear of coming forward. People know that there is a minimum wage in Ireland and people know their rights but they have no enforcement mechanism when they are not unionised. Fear is a big factor.

The Migrant Rights Centre is continually dealing with issues of compliance and we bring cases to the Labour Court. Compliance with the minimum wage is still a problem, in particular, for undocumented workers as our study showed. The care work sector is very precarious. We are doing a study with SIPTU and the Carer's Association to examine levels of compliance. We note zero hour contracts and people fearful of complaining. This brings in the procurement issue because companies are tendering to the health service for contracts to run our care services. There is a package of issues in this regard. Therefore, if the Bill deals only with the minimum wage - which I acknowledge is a significant step forward - and does not consider the inter-relationship issues and the issues that keep low pay as a pressing issue, we will lose out.