Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

First and foremost, I want to send my solidarity to the Palestinian people and all living under siege in Gaza now. What the State of Israel is doing now is a war crime. It breaks international law. I can think of no other words to describe it than ethnic cleansing. We are speaking on this issue later but I want to call again on the Government to condemn the Israeli state and to put massive pressure on it to declare an immediate ceasefire and an immediate end to the murder it is inflicting. Any indiscriminate killing of any citizen by any group should be condemned.

I raise another important topic. Almost exactly one year ago, the EU passed a directive on adequate minimum wages. Part of the directive was the requirement for countries with less than 80% collective bargaining coverage to implement plans to increase coverage by November 2024. That is only a year away. The 80% threshold is based on trends that clearly show that most countries with a smaller share of low-paid workers and high minimum wages have over 80% collective bargaining coverage. We will continue to implement plans until we reach 80%. Ireland has a collective bargaining coverage of 33%, meaning we would need real structural changes to more than double our coverage. Sectoral bargaining will not bring that structural change. The EU passed this directive in recognition that increases in minimum wage are no substitute for a worker’s ability to negotiate his or her own pay and conditions. That means a greater ability for workers to negotiate with their own employer through their own union. Ireland has among the lowest collective bargaining trade union density in the EU. The implications of this are that Ireland has among the highest prevalence of low pay and among the highest market inequality rates in the EU. We have growing deprivation, at risk of poverty and consistent poverty rates. From my work with trade unionists, I know that workers in many sectors, especially low-paid areas such as retail, hospitality, bars, administration and workers in bogus self-employment face employers who are increasingly anti-union. The Government is on the record saying the directive will be on the agenda for the Labour Employer Economic Forum. I do not think this is good enough. The Dáil needs to see these plans before they are presented to the EU next year and there needs to be real democratic oversight of this.

To get anywhere close to the 80% threshold we will need to more than double our current collective bargaining rate of 33%.

This will require both structural changes and primary legislation. What are the Government's plans to make those changes? When will we see them? If we do not see movement on this soon, the Opposition will need to start introducing Bills to address this directive.

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