Dr. Laura Bambrick:

Given the difference between what income is worth between 2022 and 2023, we would have had to see a 15% increase. We are not going to see that; the increase will be about 9%. We have been told, and it is correct, that wages cannot chase inflation. That is why we had the €11 billion budget package only two weeks ago, the bulk and lion's share of which related to cost-of-living measures. However, as I mentioned, low-paid, minimum wage workers, first, will not benefit from the €1.1 billion tax package because they do not earn enough to get the €800 per year and, in addition, because they are mostly young, part-time workers, migrants and women, they will not benefit from a lot of what is in the cost-of-living packages. A single worker with no children, for example, will not get the benefits of the 25% reduction in childcare costs, which we really welcome, or the move to free schoolbooks, which, again, we hugely welcome. They might get the benefit of the income disregard increases for the medical card, which means they may be able to get GP care free at the point of use, and they will get the reduction in public transport. If they are able to live outside the family box room, they may see the benefit of the tax relief for renters.

These workers are earning too little to benefit from the very generous tax relief package and, because of their circumstances, they will not benefit from many of the cost-of-living measures. In addition, the vast majority, if they are working full-time, will not be on social welfare income supports. They are caught between those two tools and their wages are the only avenue available to them for keeping up their living standards. In that respect, the decline in the real wage is really important to this cohort. We absolutely understand what the Government was trying to do with the budget. It goes back to Deputy O'Reilly's point about public sector workers agreeing to a below-inflation increase. Many of those workers will benefit from the childcare package, free schoolbooks and the other very good and permanent cost-of-living measures around the social wage the Government has introduced. However, for the cohort of workers we have been discussing, their wage packet is the only buffer to protect their living standards.