Mr. Ultan Courtney:

When looked at solely from an economic perspective, it is probably true but that is an economic measurement.

If one looks at it from a different perspective, the remit of the Low Pay Commission is to look at an increase that is fair and sustainable but also to ensure that account is taken of the employment and competitiveness of the economy. That acts as a brake on what the commission has to or wants to do. It is a legitimate way of looking at how increases in this pay in the economy should take place. On that basis the commission does its best at a point in time with the information that it has from a particular and very large component of the working population, 164,000 people, in very disparate and different kinds of employment, and tries to analyse what will be the best increase going forward. This is very different from the collective bargaining system that obtains in a very large part of the employment sectors. In that context, what the Senator has said is probably factually correct but it is not how we try to do business in the sense of trying to keep pace with inflation or the cost of living. We all know from previous incarnations of ourselves that chasing inflation can lead to all sorts of problems, as such. It is not precisely what the commission is set up to do.

The commission is set up to try to deal with low pay in a progressive and incremental way over time. To do anything more quickly can lead to shocks for the system and can lead to potential loss of hours for the workers one is trying to help, and potential loss of jobs where employers start to make substitutions in the hours that they work or in the employment that they have.