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

This is extremely simple. There is nothing complicated here. There is no need to wait for a year or get a load of reports. This is extremely simple. We need to end the situation whereby young people are discriminated against on the basis of their age. We need to end the situation where they are super-exploited while, legally, the Government is saying it is okay. We need to end the situation where under-18s can be paid as little as €7.91 an hour, 18-year-olds €9.04 an hour, and 19-year-olds €10.17 an hour. It goes against the basic principle of equal pay for equal work. It is a situation that thousands of greedy employers will take advantage of this summer in particular, taking on young workers, exploiting them, and using them to cut hours for older workers who would otherwise have to be paid at least the minimum wage or maybe more. That is why the entire trade union movement supports the goal of this Bill. Mandate, Unite, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions - everyone agrees that sub-minimum pay rates should be abolished. As for some of the people in this Chamber speaking about how great it is to have people working on €8 an hour, I would like to see them working for €8 an hour. They love to speak about work and how they know how to get out of bed in the morning and everything else. They are landlords and business owners and they have probably never worked for €8 an hour in their life. I would like to see them doing so now if they think it is okay for under-18-year-olds to be working for less than that.

I want to go through some of the pretty threadbare arguments that were advanced by the Government and then by the Rural Independent Group Deputies, the most enthusiastic supporters of paying young people poverty wages. About four arguments were advanced as far as I could see. The first was that abolishing youth rates could potentially act as an incentive for young people to leave education and take up employment, which could have a negative impact on their long-term prospects. That is ridiculous. I have not seen any evidence produced to back that up. The idea that the princely sum of €11.30 an hour, which is not enough to survive on and is nowhere close to a living wage, is enticing people to leave school is absolutely ridiculous. The truth is that the continuation of the sub-minimum rates of pay, which one in four young workers under 20 is being paid at the moment, is actually driving young people out of education. It is forcing students to drop out of college because they cannot make enough money to pay for their bills or rent. Others are not able to start in college because they know they cannot afford it due to the poverty wages they are being presented with. That is the reason the third level students' union movement, the Union of Students in Ireland, UCD students and so on support the Bill, as does the secondary school students' union. That argument is really an absolute nonsense.

The second reason is that the minimum wage rate would then no longer offer any recognition of the difference between a young, inexperienced worker and a more experienced colleague. The idea that this is about experience is completely bogus. This is not about experience, it is about age. Some 18% of young people leave school at the age of 16 and go into the workplace. By the time they hit 19 they have had three years of experience in the workplace but they are not entitled to the minimum wage. Alternatively, someone could walk in the door at 20, 21, 22 or 23 with no experience and be legally entitled to the inadequate minimum wage. This is not about experience. It is explicitly about age. Linked to that is the idea that it would be terrible to have someone in a workplace with years of experience being paid the same as someone else who just came in the door. This Bill does not bar people from being paid more on the basis of experience. Of course workers, as they gain experience, should go up a salary scale. That makes sense. People should get more as opposed to the argument that we need to pay people even less than the minimum wage, supposedly on the basis of experience but in reality on the basis of their age.

Another reason advanced is that young workers under the age of 18 are not allowed to work nights and so on and are being paid less on that basis. It does not hold any water because this also applies to 18- and 19-year-olds who do not get those protections. In any case, this is about an hourly wage for the rate. It does not stop workers being paid more. They should be paid more for working unsociable hours.

Another point made is the potential impact on youth employment rates. Again it is complete nonsense in the context of the Government blaring out that we have full employment. The idea is that this will result in people not being employed or whatever. It will not. It will result in pressure on employers who might discriminate against older workers by not giving them hours in the summer time. It will force employers to pay young people at least the inadequate minimum wage we currently have.

What underlies a lot of the arguments is a kind of unspoken idea that this is really pocket money, that they do not have the same bills as the rest of us. It is just not true. School leavers are going into work and relying on this money to survive. They cannot offer their landlord 80% of the rent.

They cannot say to the supermarket, "Here is 90% of the price of my shopping." They absolutely rely on it to survive. It is the same case for many college students who depend on this money to pay their way through college. That paternalistic approach of justifying the exploitation of young people on the basis that somehow they do not need it is complete nonsense. It is not we who say that. It is not just the trade union movement or the students' unions that say it. The Council of Europe repeatedly found sub-minimum rates of pay to breach young workers' human rights. Will the Government even listen to its own human rights watchdog, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which has also condemned sub-minimum pay rates? Unfortunately, it seems the Government is deaf to all of those organisations. Those it has ears for are the Restaurants Association of Ireland, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland, Retail Excellence and the bosses who exploit young workers and line their pockets with their labour.

It was interesting that we had a broad range of support for this Bill across the Opposition benches today. The Government did not even launch a very full-throated defence of the super-exploitation of young people but instead said we will kick it down the road, etc. However, the one group in the Dáil today that came in in defence of paying young people as little as €8 an hour was the Rural Independent Group. That is very interesting because it often likes to pose as the champions of the people. The truth is its members are the champions of businesses and champions of the likes of Pat McDonagh, who was spoken about so highly and whose whole business model is based on the exploitation both of young workers. They are the champions of landlords. It is an incredible situation where Deputy McGrath called for a reintroduction of child labour in this State. He said 12-year-olds should be out working. The Rural Independent Group does not stand for ordinary people at all. It is the only group in this Dáil that is openly and clearly saying it wants 17-year-olds to continued to be paid less than €8 an hour, a continuation of 90% pay for 19-year-olds and 80% for 18-year-olds. It stands for the super-exploitation of young workers and workers generally. It is not on the side of ordinary people at all.

Before I finish I will make an appeal. We have not heard from anyone in the Green Party. I appeal to the Green Party to use its power as a party in Government to ensure this Bill is not kicked down the road. The Government's message to young workers is to wait. Young workers cannot wait. They face into a summer of super-exploitation. However, the Green Party is in power. The Green Party in England and Wales recently called for a minimum wage of £15 an hour for all workers without exemptions. I cannot understand how the Green Party in this country can possibly vote for a minimum wage for young workers that is less than half of that. Are poverty wages for young people the price of power? Let us hope not. It is not too late to withdraw this amendment or to vote against this amendment, to say "No" to kicking the can down the road, to say young workers cannot wait, and to say they will end this horrendous, discriminatory, exploitative situation of young people being legally paid even less than the minimum wage.

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