Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and staff for selecting this item for discussion, and the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Gerald Nash, for coming in to respond.

The Minister of State will be familiar with the recently published OECD report on the minimum wage. We can extract from the contents of the report that there are many employers in Ireland who consider that this is no country for those on the minimum wage. We are pretty far down the league of countries cited in the report and it most certainly is not good news for those in the retail sector, the hospitality sector, hairdressing, and the security industry, where traditionally wages have been low. We now have a situation in which many of the workforce are working for less than the minimum wage.

Having said that, we can all appreciate that what is happening in those sectors is a replica of what happened during the 1980s, when the country had its most recent recession. Many people were out of work and chasing limited job opportunities, which made them very vulnerable to unscrupulous employers. On top of that, as at present, there was the difficulty of falling trade union membership which, unfortunately, meant that people who should have trade union representation in the retail or hospitality sector were without it. For many people in low-paid employment, as someone said to me during the Dunnes Stores day of action on 2 April, if faced with the prospect of working below the minimum wage, or just on the minimum wage, or going on the dole, most people will opt to work for the minimum wage. That is the reality and it is what happened in the 1980s. It has adverse consequences, with many people struggling in the sector. It is not that these industries are not making money; they most certainly are, and Dunnes Stores is a good example. Rather, it is about the treatment of people, and the report highlights this. It is important that, as a Government and as a Parliament, we make a stand on this. I welcome the Irish Congress of Trade Unions charter for fair conditions at work, which rightly indicates that the living wage should be €11.45, which I would support. I hope that all parliamentarians in the House would support the work of Congress in achieving the living wage of €11.45 into the future.

See this speech in context