Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The living wage concept is grounded in the idea that a person’s wage should be sufficient to maintain a safe and decent standard of living. At an individual level the resources required to achieve a minimum essential standard of living are very dependent on family circumstances and thus the interaction of individual earnings with household income and supports such as child benefit, FIS and housing, education and health supports all contribute to an individual's standard of living.

In the UK, it is a voluntary code that some employers, who pay in excess of the UK national minimum wage, are keen to be associated with. However, the UK does not have the joint labour committee framework or sectoral employment order framework that, in the former case, has been re-introduced and that, in the latter case, is due to be put on a statutory footing very shortly, via the enactment of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2015. Both frameworks provide or will provide for the setting of wages in excess of the national minimum wage.

The Government’s decision to restore the national minimum wage to €8.65 per hour, with effect from 1 July 2011, together with the decision to put the joint labour committees on a more secure legal and constitutional footing represents a significant commitment by this Government to protect the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers. In at least two sectors the joint labour committee process is advancing very well in terms of orders. It should be borne in mind that the national minimum wage in Ireland is relatively high by international standards.

Making work pay continues to be a cornerstone of this Government’s agenda and the establishment of a low pay commission is one of the key commitments in the statement of Government priorities agreed in July 2014. The commission was officially launched on 26 February 2015 to operate on an interim administrative basis. Legislation to provide for the establishment of the commission on a statutory basis is expected to be published this week with a view to its enactment by mid-2015.

It is also important to bear in mind that later this year I will ensure that we have a Government-backed forum on the living wage, which will take place in the autumn. I have a deep interest in the living wage initiative and I have previously stated I will host a forum on the living wage later in the year, where I will invite employers, trade unions, civil society actors, academics and key organisations involved in this voluntary initiative to examine the concept from an Irish perspective.

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