Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have raised on several occasions the issue of a low-paid, front-line group of people who worked all during Covid-19. Without them, many of our shops, hospitals, public transport services and many public and private corporate entities could not have functioned. I refer to private security workers. Rank-and-file security officers recently set up a new campaign, Security Officers United, and some of its members will be outside the Dáil at 1 o'clock tomorrow campaigning for decent pay. The employment regulation order, ERO, for that sector means these workers get paid less than €12 an hour. It is shocking. Some of their employers have blocked an attempt to give a miserable pay increase that would bring the rate to just over €12 an hour. These workers are campaigning to have a minimum pay rate of at least €15 an hour. There are 16,000 private security workers. They are miserably paid and essentially treated with no respect. They have no pension entitlements. Often, they have no guarantee of hours. Their employers are often charging the companies who have contracted for these services many times the rate of pay being paid to the workers. That is really scandalous. The workers get paid €12 an hour, but the company hiring them out gets paid €20. It would be great if the Government would send a representative-----

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