Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to warmly commend our Sinn Féin colleagues on the motion before the House calling for an immediate increase in the national minimum wage and the introduction of a living wage of at least €12.30 per hour in 2020. A major contribution has been made by low-paid workers to the economy. Often, they are in precarious and difficult employment. It has to be recognised that the adoption of a national living wage will benefit them. I note the Minister in her speech seemed to denigrate the whole concept of a living wage as a theoretical estimate. Actually, the difference between the living wage and the national minimum wage is that the living wage is based on real research in the real economy and the real suffering that families endure, as well as the expenses to which they are subject. I believe the Minister completely misunderstood the whole basis of this debate. She referred to the tiny 30 cent increase per hour in the national minimum wage and said this had been accepted by the Government. However, I searched for the reference in the budget speech. There is no reference whatsoever by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, to the national minimum wage in his 34-page speech. It is completely missing. Even a derisory 30 cent per hour increase features nowhere and certainly there is no reference whatsoever to a living wage.

Our colleague, Deputy Shortall, has asked on several occasions in recent days where exactly is the poverty-proofing of budget 2020. Even ten years ago, we would get perhaps two or two and a half pages of a basic attempt to try to look at the impact of the budget on poverty. It is not in this budget at all. It was nowhere in the Minister's speech.

In my submission, along with Independent colleagues, to the Minister for Finance, I called for a €7 minimum increase in all social protection benefits and allowances. That could have been costed at approximately €500 million. Social Justice Ireland asked for a basic €9 per week increase and argued that was especially merited, given the daunting challenges of Brexit and climate change and the fact that we know there will be major impacts on the most vulnerable families and citizens in this country. No matter what happens, we know consumer prices are going to rise. Yet, not alone did the Government not increase the social welfare budget but because of the increase in inflation, the Government actually cut the social protection provision in budget 2020.

As is pointed out in the excellent submission made by Social Justice Ireland on the budget, one in every six people lives on an income that is below the poverty line. Shockingly, they include one in every five children and this in a country that has a per capitaGDP figure that is second only to that of Luxembourg. Such statistics are shameful, particularly when one is talking about people who are prepared to get up early to go out to work on a full or part-time basis. Fine Gael and its Government partners in Fianna Fáil have always refused to raise the necessary revenue to address the reality of poverty for so many households. Despite knowing the likely negative impact of Brexit and climate change mitigation measures on the poorest households, they still took no action to move urgently to a national living wage of at least €12.30 per hour, as called for in the motion. It was interesting to read in the lead-up to budget 2020 that even an economist like David McWilliams who had made a glaring misjudgment in his advice to the then Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, in 2008 on the bank guarantee was saying a wealth tax was essential, given that 1% of the population owned 27% of the nation's assets and 5% owned almost half of its assets. It is time to start thinking in terms of a wealth tax, but in the interim we must make an immediate move to introduce a national living wage. I commend Sinn Féin for tabling the motion.

See this speech in context