Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is complicated if the Government wants to make it complicated, but it is simple if one opposes discrimination against young people. It is simply wrong that young people should be exploited because they are young, and paid less for doing the same job as somebody else who happens to be older. It is a simple principle and that discrimination should be removed. The real issue, which the Minister of State alluded to at the end of her remarks, is the pleading of some in certain areas of retail and hospitality who disproportionately depend on very low-paid young people on these sub-minimum wage rates. There are other ways to help them and that is what the Government should be looking at. There should be no faffing around on getting rid of the sub-minimum wage rates, which are extremely low.

Let us add to that the fact that the actual minimum wage is very low, and the Government and everybody else know it should go higher. It is unacceptable that young people should be on these rates.

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