David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are in a privileged position in that we represent the people who sent us here. All of us have to be conscious of who exactly sent us here - people on different levels of incomes, including the 140,000 people who are currently on the minimum wage. While we have a responsibility in this Chamber, we are also people - not all of us because some of us did not take it - who received three pay increases in the past two years. Let us imagine that for a second. Deputies had three pay increases in the past two years. We are saying to the lowest paid workers in the State that because of Brexit, they must wait for the 30 cent an hour increase that the Low Pay Commission said they should get. That is extraordinary.

People outside this House look at politics at times and the fairness of decisions a Government will make. How is it fair to tell the lowest income workers in the State that they must wait? Many people in this State earn a great deal of money. We, in Sinn Féin, want some of those to pay a little more tax because they happen to earn hundreds of thousands of euro a year. The Government said, "No", to that but it has no problem whatsoever saying to those on a minimum wage that they must wait.

Deputy O'Reilly talked about what the living wage is, and she is right. The living wage is designed and calculated to work out what an individual needs to pay for their basic needs after a week's work. It is not two holidays a year, or even one holiday. It is not that they would have a comfortable lifestyle at the end of it. It is that they would have enough money to pay for the lighting in their homes, food, medicines and the basic essentials. That is what the living wage does yet the Government is not minded to support it, nor is Fianna Fáil, which, on many other issues, speaks from both sides of its mouth. The business lobby will come in. Fianna Fáil will fall into line. I am sure the lobby from some of the business organisations was behind the Government decision to defer paying the increase in the minimum wage.

For once, how about Fine Gael not being in the pockets of vested interests and elites? For once, how about Fine Gael representing people who are on the margins? They are people who also get up early in the morning and work hard doing difficult jobs that many other people would not do. They get the minimum wage but they have been told that they should not get a living wage or the increase in the minimum wage.

Sinn Féin is a party that proudly supports the living wage because it is about dignity and treating these people with the respect they deserve, which is sadly lacking when it comes to both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil on this issue.

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