Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

Bhí mé ag caint le cúpla duine a bhí thart anseo inné agus dúirt siad liom a bheith aireach. Dúirt siad go mb'fhéidir go dtabharfadh an Rialtas tacaíocht don Bhille inniu, ach go gcuirfeadh sé stop leis an mBille ar Chéim an Choiste. Impím oraibh go léir gan ligint don Bhille seo titim ar lár.

I welcome the reform which enables us to discuss a private Member's Bill on a Friday. It is important that we use the time wisely.

I thank representatives of SIPTU, UNITE, Mandate and the Coalition for the Low Paid who have helped my party get this far in its campaign to safeguard workers' pay and conditions, and I welcome them to here today.

In my time as an elected representative in the Oireachtas, the number of times the Government has accepted a private Members' Bill without tabling negative amendments has been as rare as hen's teeth. I dearly hope the Government will see beyond partisanship on this issue today.

To contextualise the position, the joint labour committees were established to provide statutory minimum remuneration levels and terms of conditions for workers in sectors of low pay and where no collective bargaining existed. They were set up to prevent the exploitation of workers and to prevent hundreds of thousands of people being pushed into poverty. In the past ten years it has become apparent that the legislation framing the system is inadequate. The previous Fianna Fáil Government had years of opportunity to resolve this issue by introducing legislation but it lacked the political will to do so.

Last spring and early summer, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, disregarded the empirical evidence provided by the Walsh Duffy report on the benefits of the JLCs and articulated his determination to dismantle the JLCs and reduce the wages of those whose pay and conditions are protected by the JLCs. The Minister stated that reducing wages in these sectors would create jobs. The Walsh Duffy report stated the opposite. It stated clearly:

We have concluded that lowering the basic JLC rates to the level of the minimum wage rate is unlikely to have a substantial effect on employment. We have investigated the size of the wage differential in some detail and do not find evidence of substantial wage premiums.

In other words, individuals working in this sector were not enjoying a premium that they would not enjoy in the open market as such. Labour's reaction to the emerging Government policy was shocking. Their instincts towards a political expedience not to rock the Government boat quenched any fight there to defend workers' pay.

It amazes me that when Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and now Labour seek to reform wages, they first approach those with the most vulnerable living standards. Why do the hundreds of thousands of those working in the public sector or in the private professional sectors remain invisible to the Government when it comes to cuts? On this occasion, Labour supporters to whom I spoke were dismayed at how quickly their party was morphing into Fine Gael.

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