Mr. Ultan Courtney:

The commission is representative of employers and various businesses, for example in the retail and hospitality sectors, so we have that input straight away. All the organisations representing small businesses make representations to us on the minimum wage and lay out their stall effectively every year. Those in favour and those against tell us in great detail how would it impact on business. The range of options that we are provided with does not change much - there are those who do not wish to make any change, and those who want to make the maximum change possible. Small businesses in particular make a case in regard to the differences that can apply in regions and in sectors. In some businesses the cost of labour is quite high so they find the impact extremely hard. For others it is not such a difficulty. When trying to put in place a one-size-fits-all minimum wage, we accept that it will have different impacts on different organisations. That is why the employer support issue became important for us. We recognise that as we continue the trend towards a living wage of 60% of the medium wage, as the Government has mandated to do, that may become a more significant challenge for the smaller employer and we should take account of that. We are in a learning phase in the sense that we are moving from a minimum wage to a living wage, so the research is hugely important to us. The feedback we get is extremely important for us in trying to decide exactly what is the most appropriate thing to do, to get a fair and sustainable living wage and to get a rate that is reasonable and competitive, the cost of which can be borne by businesses.