Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats for the opportunity to have this debate and all the Members for their contributions. I gather some Members have concerns about the countermotion but that is their right. The motion put forward certain views. We do not share all of those views so we tabled a countermotion but we all support developing and improving workers' rights. We are trying to get that balance right for decent work and decent workers and employees. We must also recognise there are many decent employers. Most contributors recognised that, although we know that, in some cases, some are not decent. We will try to make sure we get the balance right to protect everybody who is trying to do the right thing.

It is just over months since we took the first emergency measures to respond to the public health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. As we adapted to the reality of life during the pandemic, businesses shut and families and friends stayed apart. Many developed a deeper appreciation of the sacrifices and determination shown by the essential workers who steered us through the crisis, including our doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners, carers, gardaí, transport workers, emergency services, those working in our shops, in haulage, logistics, those keeping the shelves stocked and our cupboards full, those in our NGOs, those providing homeless services, our postal workers, farmers and all those involved in producing food and drink for the country. I thank all of them and acknowledge all those who have worked so hard to get us through the most difficult times since February.

I am also conscious that whenever we single out one group another is often missed. We should be wary of dividing workers between those who are categorised as essential and those who are not because, if anything, we have learned in the past few months that people are often categorised in the wrong areas. Everyone has a role to play in our national response to this public health emergency.

We all recognise the period ahead is going to be difficult, certainly over the next 18 to 24 months as we try to recover and get back to where we were pre-Covid-19. We must build on that to grow more new jobs and jobs that might pay more money with better conditions, and so on. We are all committed to that. It will not be an easy road but I recognise that everyone here is genuine in their efforts around that.

In doing that we must balance the public health concerns with economic and societal challenges. We have gotten the balance right to date but we cannot take this for granted. The people successfully suppressed the virus with a spirit of solidarity. Everyone played his or her part. We recognise that we are in this together and can get out of this together.

The public health emergency has left an economic crisis in its wake. By working together we can overcome this enormous challenge for the good of the people.

At the start of the year the economic outlook was positive. Unemployment was at record low levels. Wages were growing and inequality was falling. Of course, we recognise there is always more work to be don and, that we need to push to get better rights, better services, to grow more jobs and to secure more companies. We must recognise also that we have to plan for the future when it comes to creating jobs. Jobs are constantly evolving and moving. We must invest in innovation, research and development. We must invest in our companies, employees, workers and students. That means investing in their education and skills development and investing in our communities to bring it all together.

A number of speakers referred to the role our small businesses and their employees often play in bringing our communities together and providing that local service. We again recognise that during Covid-19.

To go back to where we were pre-Covid-19, seven months later it often feels like we are living in another country. Despite the enormous challenges we now face, the early interventions taken by the Government in responding to the Covid-19 crisis and the efforts of the residents of this country clubbing together to ensure we responded in the right way have paid off.

The Government has introduced €12 billion worth of measures on behalf of the taxpayer, including wage subsidies, increased welfare payments, direct grants to businesses and low-cost loans to get our country through the worst of the crisis. However, we recognise that is not enough in itself and we must go further. We are now starting to emerge in the darkest days of the emergency and we must keep on that path.

Figures published this week show the number of people depending on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, has, thankfully, fallen by 42% since its peak. That accounts for a quarter of a million people. More than 67,000 people came off the payment in the last week alone, the biggest weekly drop to date. That is good steady progress. We are making progress but we have much work to do. I am happy to work with all parties in this House to achieve that and to build on that work, and so is the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, our Department and other Departments. We will certainly lead on this from a jobs point of view.

Next week we will publish the July jobs stimulus. It will be of scale and speed to meet the challenge. As we know, there are still many challenges. The stimulus will help businesses to reopen, save jobs and create new ones and get our people back to work. It will also give hope to the many sectors that have struggled over the past couple of months and need that extra bit of help to reopen, restart and to survive and to thrive.

Some Members referred to seasonal workers and other categories that have missed out in the supports and I am hope the July stimulus plan will address all of that. It will be published next week and every effort will be made to do that. We recognise that in many parts of the country seasonal work is important and the seasons were disrupted this year.

It will include an enhanced restart grant, an extension of wage subsidies and a focus on retraining and upskilling. If we want job security, high wages, good conditions and so on, the best way we can ensure that, as well as designing and creating those jobs with companies, is by investing in our employees and their skills and training. Certainly, the big argument is always for constantly upskilling and I am glad now we have another Department with responsibility for education to focus on further education and training and to have a greater focus on higher education. Two education Departments fighting at the table for more money to invest in education is a positive.

As set out in the programme for Government, the July stimulus will be followed by the national economic plan in October to be published on the same day as the budget. It will take a longer-term view over the next two to three years as we build on the supports announced already. It will set out our long-term approach to restoring employment and our broader economic approach. All these economic initiatives must be centred around employment, retaining existing jobs, creating new ones and providing a strong focus on quality employment with good terms and conditions and good work-life balance.

We are absolutely committed to that. That is the most effective response to concerns about poverty and inequality and it is the best way to provide more and better opportunities to all of our people.

While the economic critique put forward by the Social Democrats is well founded for other countries, it does not necessarily hold for Ireland. The Irish economic story of recent years is not categorised by falling wages, rising inequality or increasingly precarious employment. That is not a true picture of Ireland. Before the onset of the Covid emergency incomes were rising, inequality was falling year on year and the minimum wage was increasing constantly. It does not mean we still do not have challenges and work to do, but it is an untrue picture to paint of Ireland.

Within the programme for Government, there is a commitment to progressing to a living wage over the lifetime of the Government. Ahead of us, there is an immediate challenge for this year and next in relation to the sectors, such as hospitality, retail and tourism, where much of the low-paid employment is provided. Our priority in the short-to-medium term must be to restore that employment and to secure it.

However, our intention and that of the Government is that once we begin to restore employment, we will move towards realising that ambition of the living wage. How we do that is not yet decided upon and I would welcome the thoughts and consideration of Members opposite on this. In fairness, the motion talks about having a task force. That is one way of doing it. There are other ways of doing it. There is no point in Deputy Shortall shaking her head. We are here to listen and work with everybody. The Deputy might bear that in mind.

Another option, apart from the task force, is to utilise the Low Pay Commission, which has been quite successful, and the minimum wage. The history of the minimum wage over the past 20 years, and particularly over the past nine years, shows the significant progress towards a substantial living wage can be made through the minimum wage and through that process. Twenty years ago, the first minimum wage was brought in. In 2000, it stood at £4.40, the equivalent at that time of €5.58. In 2008, it stood at €7.65. Since then, it has increased to €10.10 today - steady progress we are certainly willing to build on and make happen.

Over the past nine years, the minimum wage has grown by 32%. This growth surpasses by a considerable distance the growth in the cost of living and broader wage growth. During that same period, inflation has grown by 6.1% and median weekly wages by 9.2%. Everybody else wants to quote statistics; we can also quote them. As a result of those changes, the minimum wage in Ireland is the second highest on a monthly basis in the European Union, second only to Luxembourg, according to EUROSTAT. When accounting for purchasing power, Ireland's drops to sixth - we accept that - but ours remains among the highest minimum wage rates in the EU. This gives us confidence that we can, once we get the economy and employment back on track, achieve a living wage during the lifetime of this Government and I am happy to work with all parties to achieve that.

Poverty and deprivation rates have fallen dramatically since the end of the previous economic crisis through a strong focus on employment and getting people into work, and sustainable jobs. Some on the Opposition benches may claim jobs were poorly paid, with high rates of in-work poverty and on precarious terms. That may be true in other countries but it is not here. Ireland's in-work at-risk-of-poverty rate in 2018 was 4.8%. The EU average was 9.3%. Of the countries that provide data, Ireland has the third lowest in-work at-risk-of-poverty rate in the EU behind the Czech Republic and Finland.

When we look impartially at recent experience in Ireland, at the facts rather than everyone's interpretation of the facts, there is much that is positive we can take from what has happened in the Irish economy in recent years. We can see from this experience that the best antidote to poverty and inequality is a focus on good-quality employment, on ensuring people have access to jobs and those jobs being of good quality with a strong social insurance safety net for them when they need it. That is also an area we want to build on.

There have been recent improvements in the minimum wage, public sector pay and conditions, reducing income tax levels, social insurance benefits such as paternity benefit, parental leave benefit as well as the extension of social insurance benefits to the self-employed, including invalidity pension, jobseeker's benefit and treatment benefits. These are all positives. It shows positive actions over the past couple of years of Governments that my party was a part of and work we want to continue on.

As I will probably run short on speaking time, I will reference the legislation that failed in the High Court and that issue there. Some people have taken issue with the Tánaiste's approach to that. I remind this House that one of the first discussions I had with the Tánaiste, the new Minister in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation where I am as well, was whether we would launch an appeal or not to that High Court decisions because we are concerned about that. That legislation came in with a Fine Gael-Labour Party Government in July 2015. It was a positive development, trying to strengthen the laws around collective bargaining that many speakers here claim we do not have. That is what it tried to do and that is now being called into question. We will appeal that. We have been clear on that. The Tánaiste was absolutely clear on that in the discussions on Thursday last in the Dáil, this week on Question Time, and would do it again tonight if he was here. We are determined to fight that on behalf of the workers of this country.

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