Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My party welcomes these proposals from the Labour Court. They will see the minimum wage rates for construction workers rise by 5.4% and for electrical contractors by 2.7%. Workers throughout the island in many different sectors are struggling to make ends meet due to the spiralling cost of housing and other costs such as childcare and insurance. It is vital that we support workers and fair wage rates are central to this support.

This approach of employers and unions working with the Labour Court for a fairer outcome is welcome. We support these two sectoral employment orders. I appreciate that business groups have expressed their concern that these rises could impact on the cost of doing business and construction costs. The Government must do more to help reduce business costs in other areas, such as insurance. We can have fairly paid workers and successful profitable businesses - these outcomes are not mutually exclusive. With this in mind, I encourage the Minister of State to revisit the current minimum wage system and put in place measures to move towards a living wage. The national minimum wage it too low, with the result that workers are living in poverty. We must ensure this is not the case and a living wage is essential to achieving this. I wanted to make those comments in line with what we are doing today.