Mr. Ultan Courtney:

I have had no discussion with the Government on the matter and that is the work of the commission, which is an independent body. The commission determined that the increase should have two components, which the Senator correctly pointed out. We just wanted to take account of an increase in the overall amount of the money involved and also a correction. We believe that it was important to have a correction because the increases before that had been quite low.

The commission had been quite prudent in its response, which is understandable in the crisis being faced in terms of Brexit and Covid-19. Nobody was sure what was going to happen, many businesses closed and many people survived on the schemes that the Government had put in place so the commission was understandably cautious. We felt that with better information and the way things were going, we could make a correction.

It is important to note in terms of the living wage proposal that the commission would have the power to speed things up if necessary or slow them down. If we were going to go into a major recession then we must take account of that situation. If the economy still manages to grow, and the economy is able to take it and it does not impact on competitiveness then we are going to move faster in terms of the implementation.