Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I was attending a meeting between members of my parliamentary party and representatives of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul on its pre-budget submissions.

I am glad Deputy Joan Collins raised issues related to decent and quality work. During my short spell as the Minister of State with responsibility for business and employment, I started the process of abolishing zero-hour contracts and improving the precarious work environment that far too many people face. Unfortunately, it seems the legislation that was originally proposed has been diluted, as Deputy Collins said, and some important amendments were rejected last night which would have made a big difference to those in precarious work.

When meeting non-governmental organisations, NGOs, which do important work in this area, we often discuss the redistribution and heavy-lifting the social welfare system does to support people in low-paid work. By and large, however, NGOs do not speak enough about the obligation to make work pay that should be imposed on employers to ensure we have decent standards of employment in this country. As we all know well, the onus for redistributing wealth in this country is placed on the social welfare system when it should fall far more heavily on employers. Employers, especially larger companies, are generally doing well from the economy on the backs of working people who often work in precarious jobs, notably in the retail, hospitality and other low-paid sectors.

On that basis, have Barnados and SVP both made submissions to the Low Pay Commission's, LPC, review of the national minimum wage? The LPC was set up in 2015 and is doing important work by taking an evidence-based approach in its annual recommendations to the Government on what the rate of the national minimum wage should be. It is my party's long-held view that the national minimum wage should be transitioned to what might be described as a living wage. Like Senator Higgins, I am supportive of the work which the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice and others are doing on the living wage technical group, income adequacy and so on. We could never say the minimum wage is anything but a basic statutory floor below which nobody should be allowed to fall. It never claims to be an adequate minimum income for anybody. We need to seriously work towards the provision of a living wage to ensure work pays. I would like to see that and I hope Barnardos, SVP and those they represent want to see it as well. While there is no doubt the social welfare system should play an important role in redistribution, we often forget there should be an onus and responsibility on employers to ensure work pays and to ensure the dignity of their staff. The work we do collectively, and the work I have done in recent years, has been about achieving that objective and I believe it can be achieved.

I am pleased to note both charities, Barnardos in particular, support the valuable work of my colleague Senator Ó Ríordáin on back-to-school costs. We often forget the back-to-school allowance does not cover everything. We know there are serious responsibilities placed on parents, often in difficult circumstances, to pay inordinate amounts of money for school books every year. The Labour Party has made some proposals to address this issue, including a proposal to prohibit so-called voluntary contributions which continue to place a major strain on families.