Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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The three highest users of work permits are meat processing companies. The impact this has had is that workers' wages have not moved since 2017. For meat processors and deboners, they were set at €10.85 and €13.65, respectively. One of those will move but only because the minimum wage is moving. The wages in that sector have not moved since 2017. There has been wage movement in the public service and the private sector. You cannot help but draw a straight line between the fact that these are high users of employment permits and that they are using them to keep wages down. All the things people say could potentially happen, and the things that are red flags and causes for concern, appear to be happening in the meat sector. That is a sector that the Department is monitoring. Does the Minister of State see what I mean? It is monitoring it and watching it getting worse year on year. Inflation is rocketing ahead of where these wages are. These are the companies that are heavy users of the employment permit system that exists already and the Minister of State is talking about making it more flexible and expanding it. I am very concerned about the impact that is going to have, not just on workers' rights, which we have explored, but also on wages. This is working in the meat processing industry because the wages are not moving. We all know wages have moved. They have moved in the public sector and in the private sector, so there is wage movement. Companies are profitable and yet the only thing that has shifted is the wages of the very lowest paid workers because the minimum wage will move. Other than that, since 2017 these people have not seen any improvement in their wages in a sector the Department is monitoring. The Minister of State says it is going to monitor this but if it monitors the seasonal work permits in the same way it monitors the meat processors, that is going to work to suppress wages..