Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I tabled amendment No. 73. I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett's comments. As long as we have been members of the committee, he has raised these issues. Our amendment seeks the production of a report on film relief in the context of the pay, conditions and training of employees within the sector and options to enhance the scheme with respect to employee pay, conditions and training.

Earlier we drew comparisons, or perhaps non-comparisons, between North and South in respect of housing. One area where we could look to the North, and where the minister there does have powers, relates to the terms and conditions of contracts. The Northern Executive has just been accredited as a living wage employer, something this State has not achieved. It is wrong that those working within the public service or the Civil Service would not automatically earn the living wage. Perhaps the Minister will update on us whether there is an intention to move there. Crucially, in the North, that includes those who provide services such as catering, cleaning and others. More important, as the Minister of Finance in the North, Conor Murphy, has informed me, is that from June of next year, the Executive will use the £3 billion it spends on goods and services for a greater public good. This will ensure any contract that bids for and is granted those services, whether in construction or supplying to the Departments of Education, Health or whatever, will have to abide by the living wage. Nobody will be able to be employed at a rate under the living wage.

That is an example we should follow here, and that is the spirit of our amendment. It is not about the granting of a contract of State money to a private sector employee, which is what the Executive will commence doing from June of next year, whereby in the case of every private sector contract that is awarded, all the staff will have to be paid at least the living wage. Rather, given that the section seeks to grant a benefit on companies here through tax relief, we are saying we should insist on decent pay and conditions and opportunities for those working within the sector.

It is timely to have a review of this, not just of the section I mentioned but the wider section, to examine how the State uses the vast sums it spends on contracts and to ensure it will not only be of benefit in the case of contracts awarded for the provision of, say, healthcare or education, but also that there will be the enhanced benefit whereby employees within the sector will be paid fairly.

I strongly urge the Minister to examine this issue next year with a wider lens, bringing this sector in particular, about which concerns have been raised for many years, under that microscope.