Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to participate in what I hope will be the first of many debates on jobs, and particularly sustainable jobs. Any discussion about sustainable jobs must include a discussion of what constitutes a sustainable labour market. We know the labour market is crucial in terms of creating sustainable communities and in terms of the economic, social, and cultural well being of the wider society.

According to data from the most recent quarterly national household survey for 2016, employment has increased by 2.4% in the year to the first quarter for 2016, which is welcome. This was an increase in total employment of almost 47,000 jobs, 31,000 of which were full-time and 16,300 part-time. This is an increase of 2.1% in full-time employment and of almost 4% of those in part-time jobs. While I welcome the increase in the numbers of people at work I do so cautiously. The Irish labour market is characterised by major problems with low pay, the proliferation of precarious work and increasing industrial unrest. Ireland now has the dubious distinction of having the second highest number of low-paid workers in the OECD. Contrary to the Government spin on the figures quoted, I find the high rate of increase in part-time jobs very worrying. I say this because all of the research shows that part-time workers make up a high percentage of those who are concentrated in low-paid employment sectors. They are also more vulnerable to exploitation, precariousness, low pay and what are termed "if and when" contracts.

Low pay and a weak architecture in respect of workers' rights are bad for workers, bad for the economy, bad for communities and bad for society. Low pay puts enormous pressure

on the State in terms of social transfers with the result that the State ends up supplementing the pay of vulnerable workers. In 2015 alone, the State spent a record €350 million on subsidising the income of thousands of families in low-paid work. The rapid rise in workers in receipt of family income supplement and other social transfers, at approximately 60% in recent years, is essentially topping up employers' profit margins and highlights the extent to which workers and their families are at risk of poverty. This transfer of wealth from the State is in essence reproducing, year in and year out, huge profits for large companies who see nothing wrong with bullying and exploiting their workforces. In the retail sector Dunnes Stores tops the league table for the company with the highest number of workers in receipt of FIS. Unsurprisingly, Tesco, which is currently trying its best to rid itself of trade unions, is close behind in third position. Both companies are hugely profitable and could well afford to pay all their workers a decent wage.

Likewise in the hospitality sector, which avails of the Government’s 9% rate of VAT, we have a workforce that is overwhelmingly low paid and exposed to exploitation. This sector is now showing a significant increase in profits while the reduced VAT rate continues to cost the Exchequer hundreds of millions of euro in lost revenue each year, yet employer representatives from this sector have repeatedly refused to engage with trade unions representing workers or with the WRC around the reinstatement of employment contract orders. Surely, in light of the reduced rate of VAT gifted to the sector, the Government has a responsibility to make the ongoing receipt of this rate conditional on the sector engaging with the WRC. Workers in the sector are entitled to decent pay and working conditions and I urge the Minister to raise this issue at Cabinet discussions on the forthcoming budget.

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When we talk about low pay, we must note the gender pay gap. Women represent 60% of those in low-paid employment, by which I mean employees who fall below an hourly threshold of €11.45. Research shows that women employees carry a 30% risk of low pay. This means that three in ten female employees are low paid. We know that low-paid female workers feature across all age groups but are more concentrated under the age of 40 years. The vast majority of women on low pay - 60% - are concentrated in just three sectors of employment: retail, which accounts for 24% of low-paid women; the accommodation and food sector, which accounts for 20%; and the health and social work sector, which accounts for 18%. It is interesting to note that the risk of being on low hourly pay rates declines as an employee's weekly hours increase. For example, just over half - 53% - of women working between one and 19 hours per week earn less than €11.45 per hour. One in two female employees on a temporary contract is on low pay, whereas just one in four women on a permanent contract is on low pay. This issue is highly important, given that the most recent data show the average earnings of low-paid female employees represent 55% of their household income. Overall, 34% of low-paid women provide the total earnings of their households, while 28% provide less than one quarter of household income. The concentration of low-paid female main earners in the bottom half of the income distribution ladder is of particular concern from a household income and living standards perspective. It has been noted that when public policy objectives in the labour market regulation area are extended beyond hourly rates of pay to include workers' living standards, the results point towards roles for various policy levers, including earnings but also, most importantly, access to decent public services, especially in the areas of health care, housing, affordable public transport and publicly supported child care.

I remind the Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, the first female Minister for jobs since the foundation of the State, that as we celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rising this year, she is following in the footsteps of Constance Markievicz who served as Minister for Labour. I would like to know what measures the Minister intends to introduce to deal with the issue of low pay among women and the gender pay gap. If low wages, low tax rates and low levels of labour protection were central to competitiveness, as is often claimed, Ireland would be leading the competitiveness league. Instead, we are well behind other small open economies such as Austria, Belgium and Finland which have far higher levels of wages, tax and robust protections for workers. Almost half of the workers in Ireland’s indigenous economy work in low-wage sectors with high levels of precariousness such as the hospitality and retail sectors. This is well above the European average. At the same time, indigenous employment in the Irish manufacturing sector is approximately half what it is in comparable European economies. This means that we simply cannot generate the same levels of wages and wealth as those economies. As well as encouraging Irish businesses to move into high-wage and high-value sectors, we need to tackle Ireland’s high levels of inequality, poverty and social exclusion which are hindering economic growth. I noted that our goal as legislators had to be the creation of sustainable jobs, sustainable communities and a decent society. In this respect, the manner in which the labour market functions is of critical importance. Ongoing labour market restructuring is dramatically altering the life chances of a significant proportion of the population. This is having a direct impact on the standard of living of households. Therefore, I urge the Minister to look afresh at the many issues that contribute to the sustainability of the labour market as she begins work in her new portfolio.

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