Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the proposal from the Labour Party. Sinn Féin Deputies will stand with anyone in this House who is prepared to defend the rights of the people most marginalised and discriminated against in our society - those on the minimum wage.

I would like to read a letter from IBEC to the retail grocery and allied trades joint labour committee.

Dear Chairman,

As an employer member of the Joint Labour Committee for Retail Grocery and Allied Trades, I am making a formal request to the Chairman to arrange a meeting of the Committee as soon as possible.

This request has the support of the employer members of the Committee.

The purpose of the meeting request is [...]:-

"To seek a temporary deferral of the pay increase due on 1 January 2011 which is provided for in SI 448 of 2010, pending the imminent review of Employment Regulation Orders which is part of the National Recovery Plan, and in the light of the implications of the reduction in the National Minimum Wage."

Deputies can see that already some employers are circling with the intent of further exploiting workers in our communities.

It is difficult to stand here and hold one's temper when one reads that an AIB executive received a bonus of €161,000. A person on the minimum wage who works 40 hours a week will earn around €16,000 per year, so that bonus is the equivalent of ten people's yearly incomes on the minimum wage, plus €1,000. What I find hard to stomach is the support of the Green Party for the Government. Deputies Gormley and Sargent said that the cut in the minimum wage was forced on the Government as part of the IMF-EU bailout. This has been denied by others, but I will not get into the ins and outs of it. What is clear is that measures such as cutting the minimum wage, slashing social welfare, attacking the wages of other workers, decimating the public service and, probably, selling off State assets to its friends are all part of the deal made by the Government with the IMF.

This week a constituent of mine - a single parent on the minimum wage - came to my constituency office. During the worst of the weather over the past two weeks, she had no money to pay for heating oil for her home. She was so desperate that she had scrabbled together €5 or €6 to buy four gallons of heating oil. That is what is happening out there. I listened to Deputy Gormley saying last week that he totally opposed what the Government was doing, but then he voted for it. He voted in favour of cutting the minimum wage and driving people further and further into poverty and depression.

What we badly need is consensus - not a consensus for cuts, but a consensus to defend workers' rights and the minimum wage, to stand against the cuts being proposed by the two parties of the Government, and to stand by the rights of the working poor. Let us take a leaf out of James Connolly's book. I am looking at the Labour Party Members as I say this. Connolly said at one time in his life, "Organise, educate, agitate." It is time we organised against this Government and against the establishment that is part of the consensus for cuts. It is time we educated the people of this State about the wrongs of the system and what it is doing to the ordinary, decent people of this land. It is time we agitated by taking to the streets and defending the rights of the workers. I pledge on behalf of Sinn Féin tonight that this is what we will do. We will defend the workers and the minimum wage and we will defend the working poor. To hell with the €161,000 bonuses for AIB executives.

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