Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

There are issues to be balanced in this Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Bill, which brings together into one a number of separate items. The minimum wage has just been referred to by Deputy O'Donnell. There is also the pay issues for the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Ministers, and the issue of the public sector pensions.

I want to address the issue of the national minimum wage first because there is eating and drinking in it, so to speak. On the one hand, the OECD proposed the reduction of the minimum wage in Ireland but, on the other, it sent a cautionary note. I want to examine the broader picture.

I am not a fan of the narrative that because we pay the second highest minimum wage in Europe, it is an easy excuse for lowering it. I would have said we are certainly not the second or third wealthiest country and we should have a more comparative minimum wage. At the same time, we have issues in that our cost of living is higher and we are on the periphery of Europe. We have other issues that would argue for our minimum wage to be kept at a higher level. It is a bit of a juggling act, therefore.

When the Minister for Finance was asked in August 2009 - I remember it well because I was on holidays and having lunch in Clara, of all places, the Taoiseach's home town-----

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