Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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7. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his views on the living wage, and that the introduction of a living wage of at least €11.45 per hour is essential to begin to address the inequality in our society; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18408/15]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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I tabled this question to continue the debate on a living, rather than a minimum, wage. Many people support the concept of a living wage. Family income supplement, FIS, was mentioned and some 40,000 working families are in receipt of it. The minimum wage is not a living wage; it is the bare minimum the State deems a person should earn per hour. The concept of €11.45 per hour has been raised and it will be interesting to see what the Minister has to say about it.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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The living wage concept is grounded in the idea that a person’s wage should be sufficient to maintain a safe and decent standard of living. At an individual level the resources required to achieve a minimum essential standard of living are very dependent on family circumstances and thus the interaction of individual earnings with household income and supports such as child benefit, FIS and housing, education and health supports all contribute to an individual's standard of living.

In the UK, it is a voluntary code that some employers, who pay in excess of the UK national minimum wage, are keen to be associated with. However, the UK does not have the joint labour committee framework or sectoral employment order framework that, in the former case, has been re-introduced and that, in the latter case, is due to be put on a statutory footing very shortly, via the enactment of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2015. Both frameworks provide or will provide for the setting of wages in excess of the national minimum wage.

The Government’s decision to restore the national minimum wage to €8.65 per hour, with effect from 1 July 2011, together with the decision to put the joint labour committees on a more secure legal and constitutional footing represents a significant commitment by this Government to protect the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers. In at least two sectors the joint labour committee process is advancing very well in terms of orders. It should be borne in mind that the national minimum wage in Ireland is relatively high by international standards.

Making work pay continues to be a cornerstone of this Government’s agenda and the establishment of a low pay commission is one of the key commitments in the statement of Government priorities agreed in July 2014. The commission was officially launched on 26 February 2015 to operate on an interim administrative basis. Legislation to provide for the establishment of the commission on a statutory basis is expected to be published this week with a view to its enactment by mid-2015.

It is also important to bear in mind that later this year I will ensure that we have a Government-backed forum on the living wage, which will take place in the autumn. I have a deep interest in the living wage initiative and I have previously stated I will host a forum on the living wage later in the year, where I will invite employers, trade unions, civil society actors, academics and key organisations involved in this voluntary initiative to examine the concept from an Irish perspective.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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I welcome that sort of forum and participating in it. It is a key debate. In Britain the living wage, by law, is £7.56 an hour, but in the city of London there is a voluntary wage of £10.55, a concept which most employers have bought into on the basis that it is good practice, which is good to see. A wage of €11.45 per hour, considering sterling-euro exchange rates, is not too far from that. Employers used to pay a Dublin rate and a rural rate in the retail sector. Is that something the Minister of State is considering regarding a living wage concept nationally?

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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There is provision in the review of the JLC sector and the fact that we have put the JLC system on a stronger legislative and constitutional footing for the establishment, for example, of a JLC in the retail sector. Under the legislation it is a matter for employers, employees and trade unions to engage.

I am very interested in the concept of a living wage and have engaged with the Living Wage Foundation in the UK on an informal basis on a number of occasions, as well as with other think tanks which have done some very important work on the concept of a living wage. The Deputy will be familiar with the fact that the concept is a voluntary one. It is a grassroots initiative, developed by civil society organisations in the UK in the late 1990s and early 2000s. To the best of my recollection, about 1,200 employers in the UK have signed up to this voluntary initiative.

There is a role for civil society to work with all interested parties to make sure that they can promote the concept of a living wage. As I said, I will host a forum in Dublin later this year to discuss the concept from an Irish perspective and see what we can learn from the UK. At that forum we will engage with progressive employers and civil society actors to discuss the concept further.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left)
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The concept of a living wage has to reflect the cost of everything else. The cost of child care in Ireland is among the highest in Europe due to the fact that it is not subsided in any way by the State.

Transport costs and the fact child benefit is paid must also be taken into account. All of these issues must be weighed when working out what the national living wage should be. It is welcome that the Government is pushing for this and I know that the Tánaiste agrees with the concept of a living wage. It is absolutely necessary to protect those who are the most vulnerable and in the type of jobs in which they are most subject to exploitation.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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It is worth noting that the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, and I have worked very hard to re-establish a registered employment agreement, REA, system that will be constitutionally and legislatively robust. We will be introducing the legislation very shortly. We have a joint labour committee system in place and work is ongoing on two particular sectors covered by JLCs, where I expect we will see some progress on a code and an order in the next few months. The REA system, for example, covered 70,000 to 80,000 workers, but that is no longer in place because of the McGowan judgment in 2013. What the United Kingdom does not have is a joint labour committee system, an REA system or a sectoral employment order system, which we are seeking to introduce by legislation here. When we are discussing issues around the living wage and employment conditions, we need to be mindful of this, in particular when comparing the situation in Ireland to that in the United Kingdom.