Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Many ISME members pay workers less than €350 a week because many of them are employing people for less than a 40-hour week, there are significant numbers of precarious temporary contracts and so on. As it happens, my partner was the organising director for the 15 Now campaign in Seattle. She would certainly dispute some of what Mr. McDonnell has said about the impact that had in terms of raising the floor for all workers in Seattle. That obviously became a national campaign.

Moving on to the issue of sick pay, Mr. McDonnell was quoted in the Sunday Business Postat the weekend, and he referred to it in his submission, effectively criticising elements of the statutory sick pay scheme. He opposed the ten-day entitlement which will be in place by 2025 and called for the burden of payment to be place on workers, so that workers pay for their own sick pay scheme.

One of the things Mr. McDonnell is quoted as saying is that he had had the unfortunate need to dismiss people for that level of absence when he was working in the haulage sector, when people were taking ten days of sick pay. Is it ISME policy to sack workers for taking sick days?