Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his detailed presentation and the really good level of engagement we have had over the past hour or so. A lot of ground has been covered so I will be relatively brief.

I wish to make one key point. I suspect the Minister of State may agree with me on it but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say. On allowances and social welfare payments, the jobseeker's allowance was €197 in 2009 a week and today, nearly 13 years later, it is €203 a week. There is a huge gap there and previous speakers referred to it. I have a simple question on this issue. If we are serious about social inclusion, then is a significant increase in that welfare rate not an absolute necessity in this coming year? I cannot see how all the important things the Minister of State mentioned can be delivered without that type of seismic move. He used the word "dramatic" earlier. This increase has to happen, otherwise we will end up talking about good intentions again. Respectfully, I think the Minister of State will agree that is not good enough at this point. I would like a clear statement from him on what needs to happen to those social welfare rates, given that so little has happened to them over the past decade.

I am not entirely happy with how the Department defines poverty. It is significant that organisations like Social Justice Ireland come up with much higher figures for poverty, such as the figure of 680,000 people, including 200,000 children, living in food poverty. How will the Minister of State's policy address the key issue of in-work poverty? In my experience as a trade unionist and, indeed, in my current job, the issue of people who are working for a living but are not managing to earn a living is a massive problem for us. I will give one simple example. When we increase the cost of fuel, people on the minimum wage cannot access fuel allowances. While it might seem that we are covering and protecting people, we are not. People at the lowest levels of pay do not get any additional money. I am concerned about how the overall policy will address the issue of in-work poverty because it seems to me that the goalposts have, for the most part, been shifted below the minimum wage.

I am intrigued about the seven high-level goals in the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025. The second goal is to ensure work pays and fair pay and conditions for workers. Can the Minister of State tell us what specific actions the Department has taken in the context of ensuring fair pay and conditions for workers? It is a genuine, serious question. When we talk about fair pay and conditions for workers, the elephant in the room is that Ireland, unlike most other countries in the European Union, does not have a right to collective bargaining. In that context, how does a private sector worker get a pay increase? It is not there. We know that, for an awful lot of people, pay has remained static over the past decade.

The other problem is that the Government - not the Minister of State personally, I hasten to add - has set its face against collective bargaining. In fact, it wrote to the European Union only a few weeks back to ask that an upcoming directive be watered down to a recommendation, just in case collective bargaining may be somewhat strengthened. As already stated, the elephant in the room is collective bargaining. What specific actions is the Department taking to ensure fair pay and conditions for workers? We know we have one of the largest low-pay sectors anywhere in Europe. I again thank the Minister of State for his time.