Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Barry for bringing the motion forward. At the centre of this debate is one unassailable fact, which is not debatable: the national minimum wage in this country is a poverty wage. A full-time worker earning the minimum wage gets only €21,000 a year. That is €5,000 a year less than the independently assessed minimum income needed for an acceptable standard of living for an individual without children. That is an unassailable fact the Government stands over, which results in minimum wage workers, even those without children, living in poverty. Does the Government think it is acceptable in 21st-century Ireland, a country with immense wealth and some of the most productive workers in the world, that a full-time job is not enough to lift someone out of poverty? Yesterday, in response to questions on this issue, the Taoiseach said that the answer to poverty and deprivation is work, but these people are working. They are not unemployed; they are working hard and they are working full time, but they are in poverty. A worker works a full week and is not able to pay the bills. The essence of this point is that it is time to lift the minimum wage to a real living wage for all. No worker should be left in poverty and that means fighting for a €15 an hour minimum wage.

In this debate, there will be, as there are in public, many myths and half ideas spun about minimum wage workers. These are stories told to try to justify the payment of poverty wages. To listen to those who oppose increases in the minimum wage, anyone would have the impression that minimum wage workers are all young, part-time workers earning a little pocket money for the weekend. That would not justify paying poverty wages, but it is not even true. Two thirds of those on the minimum wage are full-time workers with 90% in permanent positions. We have the most educated minimum wage workers in Europe. These are hard-working people doing essential work and trying to make a living. They deserve a decent raise.

The German Government, under pressure, has just announced that it will increase the minimum wage to €12 an hour this year. If the Government will not agree with our demand for €15 an hour, will it at least agree to €12 an hour, which would be at about the level of the real increase in inflation for those who are on low incomes? One in four workers in Ireland earn less than €12 an hour. That includes significant numbers of workers in childcare, retail and hospitality, precisely those people who were clapped by the Government over the past two years. They do not want applause; they want respect and a decent wage. In the US, the Fight for $15 campaign won the phasing in of a $15 minimum wage in a number of different states. We need a similar movement here to fight for a €15 an hour minimum wage.

When this is discussed, many Deputies baulk at the idea of €15 an hour. They suggest it is an unreasonably high figure, but the reality is €15 an hour amounts to €2,500 a month or €30,000 a year for a full-time worker. Ireland is a wealthy country. There is no reason a full-time worker should earn less than €30,000. Let us consider rental rates. A one-bedroom apartment in Dublin is €1,500 a month. How could anyone be expected to live a decent life and raise a family on less than €2,500 a month? The Taoiseach, who presumably opposes a €15 an hour minimum wage, earns €215,000 a year, while a minimum wage worker earns 10% of that or €21,000. That is simply not right. How can earning wages ten times those of an ordinary worker be justified? Does the Taoiseach and the Government think that is fair? For example, Mr. Paul Reid, head of the HSE, is earning 20 times the wage of a minimum wage cleaner. We need to raise the wages of the low paid and cut them for the tiny few at the very top.

Rents continue to go through the roof. According to the latest daft.ierental price report, in south County Dublin, for example, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is now €1,549 and that for a three-bedroom house is €2,290. Rents are going up by 5% or 10% throughout the country and energy bills went up by 40% or more, yet the minimum wage went up by less than 3%. That is a cut in real income for the low paid in this country. While Deputies received pay rise after pay rise, and one senior official recently received an €81,000 raise, low-paid workers are expected to make do with less. If Deputies' wages were linked to the minimum wage, we would have seen a proper increase a long time ago.

This also takes place in the context of the debate on the cost-of-living crisis. It should be recalled that when we raised this issue last year the Government told us that the price hikes were transitory. In October, in our first motion about this crisis in this House, and again in December, we warned that anything less than direct State intervention, using powers available to the Government, would not address the crippling rise in energy and heating costs. The Government then announced the tiny subsidy of €100 for electricity consumers. It is trying desperately to distance itself from the comments of the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Sean Fleming, about shopping around, but the truth is that is the Government programme. Members should read the amendment that was tabled to gut our motion on the energy prices crisis. The bottom line point of the Government is that the market will provide. Again and again, in answer to parliamentary questions and in answers in the House, the Government has put forward the idea that people need to go and shop around. The reality is the Government is ideologically opposed to imposing regulation on market forces or taking things out of the control of the market and into public ownership. It pretends that nothing can be done and this is a global rise in inflation. What is hidden under that is the fact of profits. Inflation is, to a substantial degree, profit-driven in this country. It is not an automatic fact of life that big business just keeps the big profits it is making. Year in and year out, the costs go up for big business, but it just passes those costs on and ordinary people's lives get harder. The question of who pays the price for inflation is an active political and class struggle question.

The determination of big business and of the Government is that workers pay the price for inflation, both through declining wages in real terms and increased prices. All the indications so far, however, from the balance sheets coming out of big business are that it is not hurting at all. Shell and BP announced last week that they are on track to make £40 billion in profits this year. ESB announced a significant increase in profits last year, as did Energia. We do not accept that. We say that can be cut into by, on the one hand, price controls, which the Government has the power to implement but refuses to, and by workers fighting for a pay increase.

Throughout the country, workers are demanding pay rises and they are right to do so. If workers do not organise and speak up, they will lose out. When they do fight back, they have power - extra power in the current economic situation - and they can win real improvements. Before Christmas, for example, Dunnes Stores workers campaigned for and won a 10% increase. That should be an inspiration to other workers to do the same, to talk to their fellow workers, to link in with their union, to push for a meeting of all staff to discuss a pay claim and to lodge a pay claim. The same goes for public sector workers. They should organise now to demand an emergency pay increase that goes beyond the rate of inflation. For us, raising the minimum wage is a part of this. It not only helps the very low paid out of poverty, but raising the wage floor helps to raise the wages of all workers. It also helps to strengthen the negotiating power of other workers who are already above the rate of the minimum wage.

I will make a final point that we also need to end age discrimination when it comes to the national minimum wage in this country. It is blatant discrimination that people under the age of 20 are only entitled to earn less than the minimum wage. They are doing the same work and should be paid the same for it.

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