Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to the section, if I may. I introduced an amendment that was, unfortunately, ruled out. It related to the notion of attaching social and employment conditions to the enormous bundle of taxpayers' money and borrowed cash that we will be injecting into the economy in the next period. It is not a radical idea and is done routinely across the European Union in one fashion or another.

I am a great believer in, and was a supporter of, the introduction of the temporary wage subsidy scheme. In many ways, I think it was the best example of social partnership in practice. The Government, trade union movement and employers essentially came together to design a scheme quickly in order to support businesses, working people and the State through a difficult time. I understand that this particular scheme was obviously developed in the dark of night and was turned around very quickly to ensure people got cash when they needed it most and companies would not close their doors, would be maintained and continue to operate, and the relationship between the employer and employee would continue and give people hope for the future in dark times.

I was hopeful that the Minister might respond to my repeated calls, and those of others, for the attachment of conditions to this new scheme that is being proposed and which I support. As I said on Second Stage, the Labour Party and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions proposed the evolution of this scheme into a German-style short-term work scheme with conditions attaching to it. One of those conditions should have been a requirement to ensure that recognised training opportunities were provided under the scheme because, as I have said ad nauseamin this Chamber and elsewhere, we have one of the lowest levels of in-work training in the European Union. Our future competitiveness and productivity will depend on the agility, skills and experience of our workforce.

This is a golden opportunity for the State to paint a picture of a better future and leverage its authority and power to try to create better outcomes for working people. I say that with a couple of particular sectors in mind. We know the tourism and hospitality sectors require State support at the moment. They have been at the front of the queue and made some serious demands on the Government. I understand that. However, one never hears the voice of the worker in those sectors because it has been crowded out. Those workers are working in precarious conditions, on a low rate of pay and have very little prospect of a future horizon and full-time career in that sector because of the precariousness and uncertainty involved. This was an opportunity not to reinvent the wheel but to impose a condition on employers who are benefiting from this scheme, for example, those in the hospitality sector, to engage in the joint labour committee system. That system has been legislated for in this country since 2012 but is routinely vetoed by employer bodies who want to drive down labour costs, flip staff as much as they can and demand maximum flexibility from them.

The joint labour committee system works very well in the contract cleaning and security sectors, where good, progressive employers come together with trade unions to develop customised solutions for their sector based on decent pay, a level playing pitch for doing business and decent conditions. It has worked very well but, routinely, the hospitality sector, including restaurants and hotels, has decided that it does not want to engage and that veto continues to be permitted. Unfortunately, the previous Government voted down legislation developed by me and my Labour Party colleagues in the Seanad late last year which would have ended the employer veto. Sectoral collective bargaining is the norm across the European Union. If we are to develop ways in which we can tackle market and income inequality in this country, this is how to do it.

In the same way that we did not attach many conditions to the bank bailout, there are no conditions on the cash that will be pumped into various businesses over the next period. I accept that the cash injection is required but here is an opportunity to do something different, to try to rewrite the rules and make Ireland a little bit more equal. Unfortunately, we have failed to do that and failed to use this opportunity. I wonder sometimes if we ever learn the lessons of the past. We have a problem with low pay in this country that is haunting us today and will haunt us for generations to come. Some 23% of all Irish workers are considered to be low paid. That is not something of which we should be proud and, in post-pandemic Ireland, we should not accept that any job will do.

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