Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tuesday saw the mechanical SEO struck down. It is greed that is motivating this. The Minister of State says it is the minimum but for many workers it is what they will get. It may be a minimum and there may be an aspiration towards a higher wage but it does not happen. For these workers, the minimum, which is their wage, will be set and it will be struck down. The Minister of State should be under no illusions. It is greed and only greed that is motivating employers to go down to the courts. We are not talking about large sums of money or workers who are making vast sums.

Where there is movement in the minimum wage and the relativity is not respected, it becomes meaningless. It is €12.90 for the workers and €12.70 in the minimum wage, a 20 cent difference for workers who are doing work for which they are trained, skilled and regulated. Workers in the security sector are very heavily regulated, yet they see an employer who was not at the table being allowed to withhold from them a very modest pay increase. The threat has been withdrawn but when the minimum wage increase comes in, they will find themselves better off by 20 cent an hour for semi-skilled work which is highly regulated.

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