Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too raise the TASC report published this morning. It shows a disproportionate share of national income accrues to richer groups in society and consequently a lower share to the less well-off section of society. The report finds that the bottom 40% of the State's population receives just 22% of the national income while the top 10% receives almost 25%. It does not take a genius to work out that we live in an unequal society in respect of income levels and take-home pay. The TASC report finds that insufficient pay is the primary cause of that inequality. The report's author, Dr. Robert Sweeney, said this morning that if one wants to really reduce inequality in the future we have to tackle low pay.

We know with housing, because we have been told time and again, that quite outside of those who find themselves in emergency accommodation or find themselves on homeless lists, we have a hidden hardship, a whole hidden generation of people who sleep in their Ma's box room or who sofa-surf and we have more who will never have the aspiration of owning their own home and more who struggle to pay the rent. There are more people who are in work but who are worried that if anything goes wrong or another bill arrives on the mat, their domestic situation goes under.

Will the Taoiseach adopt, as policy, the payment of a living wage and to move from minimum wage payment, as our floor or our threshold? That would be the right thing to do.

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