Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Cronin started where I wanted to start, which was on collective bargaining. Is there supplementary information? Dr. Russell mentioned that collective bargaining systems are a feature of most societies where wage inequality is low. It would be useful to get more data on that.

I ask about recommendations, bearing in mind we have to follow through, around how to embed the right to collective bargaining.

Employment orders and JLCs have had lots of legal battles. JLCs were a good step forward that was challenged. How do we support or embed those, potentially? How have other countries embedded them as solid tools that can be used?

This is not about the individual asking for a wage rise in many cases but about the collective voice on this issue. It is about income inequality coming into this as an issue again.

To elaborate on my earlier comment that Ireland has some of the highest income equality in the world, we are 32nd of 34 countries based on the 2018 OECD figures, before taxes and transfers are considered. What is happening therefore is that Ireland is doing a great deal of work through our tax and transfer systems to address what is high income inequality. In this section, the question is whether enough is being done to tackle this income inequality. If families are having to rely on family income supplement, FIS, to be able to live on a minimum wage, the State is effectively providing an indirect subsidy to the employer. We are also subsiding companies that are very capable of addressing that.

Therefore, in respect of this analysis, and diving down into the information, this is what I mean by moving past a kind of anecdotal or example version of this topic and, instead, looking at the detail to try to determine, for example, if fewer hours were involved but the workers were coming out with the same wages. That could perhaps be a positive thing. If there are issues or concerns, it could be a case of seeing what steps could be taken to ensure we do not have a blanket suppression of the minimum wage to deal with a handful of situations when we have mechanisms, such as ability to pay, which could be addressed in this regard. This is what I mean when I refer to the need to have detailed scrutiny. There was a flaw when the minimum wage legislation was initially enacted. It is why we are still talking about this issue. I was with the National Women's Council of Ireland, NWCI, at the time and I remember that we pushed hard for the word "adequacy" to be included in the terms of reference, but it was not. This is why we must now address adequacy and the reason the gap continues to have to be addressed through social transfers.

I ask for more of a breakdown and analysis in this area because we need a greater depth and richness of analysis of the minimum wage. Within that context, there is also the income inequality, referred to by Deputy Cronin, regarding wages at the top and at the bottom. Alongside that - because it addresses the same structural issues - do the witnesses have breakdowns of the proportion of company profits and incomes being spent on wages versus, for example, returns to shareholders and how that proportion has shifted?

This is relevant in respect of Deputy Bacik's - Senator Bacik as she was then - excellent legislation concerning company pay transparency. What I thought was really good about that, if I am correct, is that it addressed the other parts of the remuneration packages, including whether it is men who are predominantly getting share packages and dividends. The witnesses might comment on what research exists on who gets shares because this information is not always captured on the wage packets, and on the level of shareholder returns versus wages and if this ratio has shifted. We must find ways to address that if it has changed.

I also ask the witnesses to comment on pension inequality and the question I already referred to of the knock-on impact of this element of the system, especially for the two categories of those in part-time or low-paid work. Then there is the question of the disproportionate level, as highlighted by the witnesses, of our spending on pensions that goes to pay for the marginal rate tax relief for those on the very highest incomes. Research by the witnesses has shown that the beneficiaries in this regard are disproportionately likely to be men. I ask the witnesses to comment on all those points.