Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 October 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Low Pay Commission Recommendations on the National Minimum Wage: Discussion

Dr. Frank Walsh:

Yes, the percentage. It goes way down from 57.6% in 2018 to a low last year. As I say, I was there for a number of those years. We were in a bit of a fog in terms of data, in particular throughout the Covid years when the labour market data was just meaningless. I do not think it was our intention that this would happen. Having been there at the time, these were difficult years and our intention was to be in a holding pattern where we would hold the minimum wage relative to what was going on with other workers. It is fair to say that last year when we had better data, when we had the tax data and could get better calculations, is when we started to adjust and realised we had fallen behind.