Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not. People are being told that if they do not participate in the scheme their entitlements will be called into question. It is a national scandal that must be condemned and stopped. Under JobBridge restaurants are taking on people to wash dishes; garages are taking on people to wash cars and pubs are taking on people to wash down tables and collect glasses. Is that training? Not only is this an abuse of people, in the main young people, but it is damaging the prospect for real jobs in the economy. That is the scandal. These are people who should be in real jobs and paid decent wages.

More than one third of workers in this country will be paid less than €20,000 this year. How can we expect people to keep a roof over their heads, put their children through school, put food on the table and keep homes warm and secure when more than one third of people in employment here will earn less than €20,000 this year? To put this in perspective, €20,000 is one eighth of what a Minister can expect to earn this year.

The Government must implement a strategy to tackle low pay in Ireland and bring about real change in the lives of the many people who fall into the low paid worker bracket. Increasing pay for low paid workers would have an immediate and direct benefit on the Irish economy. Increasing the purchasing power of people will in itself create more jobs. That is the way it works. It is what the economists tell us. The money earned by low paid workers is money that will be spent in this country. Low paid workers are not the people who will be buying property abroad. They will spend their earnings in their local economy. While this Bill is welcome, more needs to be done to address the plight of those earning low wages in Ireland.

Another issue that needs to be addressed, although it may not be necessarily relevant to this Bill, is the number of income maintenance schemes in place here. The last time I checked there were approximately 57 of them. We could be paying more to people who need it if the income maintenance structure here was restructured. People in receipt of income maintenance and income support cheques are concerned not with how that payment is described but the amount they are being paid. A rationalisation of this process would allow for payment of considerably more to people dependent on income maintenance, and from within the same budget. Should this be considered?

Our objective must be payment of decent support to people dependent on it and to do this as efficiently and effectively as we can. We must also ensure that people who are working can have a decent standard of living, so that they do not have to be continually worrying about from where the next penny will come to meet the cost of heating their homes, feeding their children and putting them through school. This Bill goes some way towards this but there is so much more that needs to be done. I think the Minister of State knows that.

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