Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is relevant generally to the conditions of workers across the country. They should engage with the trade unions on alternatives. It is high time, by the way, in conclusion on this point, that the Government stopped ignoring the Labour Party's calls for a German-type short-time working scheme to be introduced that could greatly assist in situations like this.

The Labour Party is happy to support this Bill which addresses the blatant discrimination against low-paid younger workers in Ireland which has been tolerated for far too long. We believe there is no justification for asking young people to do the same work as their older colleagues for less pay. In fact, there probably never has. We have anti-discrimination employment laws in this country and discriminating against young people when it comes to paying the minimum wage is incompatible with the spirit of those laws, in our view. It is no longer accepted - it was never justified - to pay women less for the same work and it is long past time that principle is extended to younger workers too.

Ireland is something of an outlier in Europe in setting different rates for the minimum wage according to age but the Council of Europe has now found that Ireland is in breach of its labour rights obligations under the revised European Social Charter because of the reduced minimum wage rates for younger workers. The Government is now compelled to do something to address the issue. I was not present in the Chamber for the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Richmond's remarks earlier but I assume that he has made reference to the fact that the Low Pay Commission is currently looking at that question. That is a welcome move.

The Labour Party welcomes the move towards a living wage that is currently under way. We have a target in place to create a living wage of 60% of the median wage in the country by 2026 and we cannot lock our young people out of that progress. We have locked young people out of progress in terms of the housing market and we cannot lock them out of higher pay. We want to see hard-working younger people on low pay at least reaching that same target or the living wage will mean nothing to a significant portion of our working population.

The move to a living wage is flawed if it is not guaranteed to every worker in the State and this Bill would set the framework to allow that to happen.

Over a quarter of those earning the minimum wage are aged between 15 and 19. This unfortunate cohort of workers is having to make do with anything from 90% to just 70% of the adult minimum wage. The same outdated arguments that were used falsely to justify paying women less are now being rehearsed as justification for lower pay for our young people. Some will say that workers in their teens may live at home in the main, and while that might still be true, in a world where families across the land are facing a huge cost-of-living crisis and are struggling to make ends meet, every working member of a household is expected to pull his or her weight and make his or her contribution. The law, as it currently stands, as it pertains to the minimum wage, does not reflect that.

The argument in favour of paying the same rate of minimum wage across the board is a broader one. It is about the concept of fairness. My party has always fought for an honest day's pay for an honest day's work and we see no reason that principle should be compromised in any way simply because of the year of one's birth.

Labour has moved to address this issue in seeking to guarantee, for example, the minimum wage to apprentices. Apprentices and young people in general are crucial to this country's future and, in particular, are a cornerstone in tackling the housing crisis. If we are meaningfully to tackle the housing crisis which is the root cause of many of our social, economic and infrastructural problems, then training young people in the trades needed for construction is more important than ever. Despite everyone's best efforts, the number of young people going into apprenticeships in the wet trades is embarrassingly low. In order to attract young people to this vital area of endeavour, guaranteeing at least the minimum wage while they train, regardless of their age, will be crucial. In that sense, apart from being the fair and right thing to do, guaranteeing the minimum wage and then a living wage to all, makes sense for the economy too. It is high time we made apprenticeships a viable alternative to higher education for young people who want to go that route and provide fair pay to our young apprentices.

While providing a fair day's pay for our younger people and apprentices may provide more options for them, it will not have a significant impact on the numbers seeking further education. I recall, in the debates around the introduction of the national minimum wage in 2000, this was one of the features driving that particular provision in the Act that there was a concern that younger people would somehow be disincentivised in terms of continuing in education because of the minimum wage and that was one of the justifications for sub-minimum rates. An argument that some will advance for keeping rates of pay low for the younger worker is that it serves as a negative or punitive incentive to take up further education but evidence from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, as we know, found that at best the impact of low rates of pay for younger workers on their continuing education was "small and weak, and sometimes statistically insignificant".

The Low Pay Commission has not yet arrived at a position where it recommends doing away with age discrimination in terms of the minimum wage but it has recommended further research on the issue, as I referenced earlier. Based on that research, it has been asked by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to make a recommendation on the issue later this year. We in the Labour Party do not see a reason to wait until then. The case is clear. I and my party believe that there is only one way to go, that is, to end this pointless and unjustified discrimination now.

The country's unions now agree. Congress has called for the ending of age discrimination with regards to the minimum wage and earlier this year, as the minimum wage went to €11.30, Mandate Trade Union pointed out the folly and injustice of denying the new minimum wage rate to young people. It is patently ridiculous that a 20-year-old can earn the full minimum wage of €11.30 per hour while a 19-year-old colleague standing or sitting beside them and doing the same work is earning €10.17 and an 18-year-old colleague has to make do with only €9.04.

It is a point worth making as well that not every young person under the age of 20 is earning a sub-minimum rate. Based on the last set of statistics I have seen, approximately 16,500 workers are on sub-minimum rates and not all employers take the view that the sub-minimum rate is the rate that they should pay. That is good and others should follow that example. If one is unfortunate enough to do the same work at age 17, one will be asked to work for only €7.91 per hour based on the proportion of the adult rate of the minimum wage that applies to 17-year-olds because of the legislation that is in place at present.

On the face of it, discriminating according to age in terms of the minimum wage is, I hope the Minister of State will agree, manifestly unfair and unjust and has to come to an end. This Bill provides us with the opportunity to do that once and for all and the Labour Party is happy to support it.

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