Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Employers who give pay rises often fund them by increasing the prices they charge their customers for the goods and services they produce. If a company with a few hundred employees increases pay by say, 7% or 8%, it will seek to fund that, at least in part, by increasing what it charges ordinary customers and people for the goods and services it produces. That is why we want to try to avoid a situation like the one that existed in the 1970s where people got substantial pay increases every year but it did not do them any good because prices went up by just as much. That is why we need to look at the thing in the round. We must look at what we are going to do on welfare, pay, income taxes and the cost of things like childcare and education. That is the kind of conversation we are now having with employers and unions to try to come up with a bigger bargain, if you like, that means if people get a pay increase it benefits them and is not swallowed up by inflation.

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