Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State with responsibility for business and employment, Deputy Gerald Nash, to the House. I am happy to see the Bill come before the House.

Income poverty is a term I had never heard until after the financial collapse. We live in a country where people who are working still cannot cover their costs. Will the National Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Bill 2015 be able to address that? I fear it will not. When we discuss fair wages and conditions, we hear Members speak about their concerns for employers. I hope they will forgive me if I show little concern for employers, particularly those employers who cut the hours of their workers as they rise up the incremental scale in order to ensure that the net amount paid to the worker does not change. I totally agree that some small businesses have struggled to meet the salaries of their staff, but it is not true to say that all employers suffered that.

The issue of income poverty will not be dealt with by this Bill, which is a matter of concern. There is a section that talks about progressive increases. These progressive increases cannot be associated with some form of reduction in working hours. The zero-hour contract still exists and something must be done about it. I appreciate that it will not be dealt with in this Bill.

I am concerned about section 10C(3)(e), which refers to job creation and levels of employment and unemployment. This provides a gateway for the commission or the Minister to seek to reduce the minimum wage because the level of unemployment is rising or the numbers at work are falling, as the case may be, or in order to generate jobs. I reject Senator White's suggestion that if people at the bottom of the scale get a euro, everybody else will want a euro. If there is a proper incremental scale, then everybody knows that when he or she is entitled to the increment it will be paid.

There is no doubt that the issue of PRSI must be dealt with. I do not believe the Bill we are discussing can deal with the issue. I have great sympathy for the self-employed whose businesses are going to the wall for one reason or another but who find they do not qualify for any benefit, having paid massive sums into the PRSI fund. That is an issue that we will have to consider. We also have to consider the dreaded class K PRSI rate, which is nothing but a tax. Who would buy insurance if they were not to receive any benefit from it? It is a nonsense and it must be dealt with.

I am delighted to see that the trade union movement is represented on the board. I am also delighted to see that we have immigrants represented on the board, but I would love if we picked some poor unfortunate who is on the scratcher and is living on social welfare, or is at the bottom of the scale in one of the retail outlets, and put them on the board. They would bring the true story of what it is like to live on the scratcher or on the minimum wage. The trade union movement will do a good job. The economists will be ethically neutral, but I would have some concern that employers will not practise ethical neutrality.

I congratulate the Minister of State on the introduction of the Bill, but I do not want to see the Government trying to sell it as some form of revolution in looking after the low-paid in this country. It will not solve that problem. I will table amendments to the Bill.