Mr. Gerry Light:

I will pick up on that because I come to this issue and this whole subject with considerable inside knowledge from having been a commissioner for six years. I was one of the founding low pay commissioners on the Low Pay Commission. The argument is not new to me. I have heard it constantly through the years. It is about the rate being driven to a certain level and the negative impact or the potential consequential impacts.

On the Low Pay Commission, my colleague, Patricia King, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and I were very keen to use the considerable budget available to the commission to commission new research because there was a dearth of research, as Mr. Courtney said, and there probably still is. All research has clearly shown that despite all the sabre-rattling and scaremongering that the impact of a particular rate and above that rate will in some way cost jobs or reduce earnings, that has not proven to be the case up to this point and is not supported by any credible research. I certainly never heard in all my years a low-paid worker urging caution against getting a pay increase. Such arguments always came from the employer side on the commission. It continues to make such arguments. Looking at the minority report this time around, the difference is stark in that the worker representatives say the increase should be higher, there should be two phases and it should be introduced over the course of this and next year, while the employers are requesting that it be phased in, which is an absolutely nonsensical suggestion in respect of the workers we are talking about. That certainly would not be in any way progressive, as far as they are concerned.