Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and welcome this constructive motion put forward by the Independent Senators.

This discussion is timely because over the past few years we have seen manifestations of very sharp practice by some employers. They seemingly value the euro over the well-being or entitlements of their employees. Every business has a need and a right to make a profit. Profitable businesses maintain and create employment. Employment is the greatest mechanism for lifting people out of poverty. What this congress document seeks to do is to crystallise what congress sees as a much improved, if not ideal, scenario for employees.

The first issue is the living wage. While I do not have any principled objection to this, it should be noted that we cannot simply fix on a monetary amount and then solve all the ills. Having sufficient funds, amounting to a living wage, is at its heart an individual matter.It often depends on the level of State support, be it children’s allowance or family income support among other measures.

It should also be noted that in this country we have re-introduced both the joint labour committee, JLC, framework and sectoral employment orders. We debated the legislation last week and the measures are due to be introduced shortly. Both of those mechanisms involve wage setting above the minimum wage. The first thing the Government did was to restore the national minimum wage, which when one factors in the cost of living is, according to EUROSTAT, the sixth highest among EU member states which have a minimum wage.

The establishment of the Low Pay Commission was a priority for the Government. The commission was officially launched on 26 February this year, to operate on an interim administrative basis. Legislation to provide for the establishment of the Low Pay Commission on a statutory basis is progressing through the Oireachtas and will be enacted later this year.

The Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, has stated he intends to hold a forum on the living wage in autumn, to which civil society organisations, trade unions and employers will be invited to discuss the concept of a living wage in this country. That is a positive step and I am sure the Independent Members welcome it. Dialogue on the issue is critical.

Zero and low-hours contracts have attracted some debate, in particular in the United Kingdom. In the UK employees on zero-hours contracts are only paid for the time spent working, and if they are not given any hours by their employer they receive no compensation. That is not the position here. An employee in this country who suffers a loss by not being given hours to work, or told to be free to work, is compensated for 25% or 15 hours, whichever is the lesser. However, that is not to say that we should be mindless of the issue. In that light, the University of Limerick has started work on a study into the prevalence of zero-hour and low-hour contracts in the Irish economy and their impact on employees. Having canvassed widely, the study will provide the Minister with the basis on which to consider what, if any, policy recommendations should be brought to Government to address issues relating to the use of such contracts and their impact on employees. I hope Senators accept the Government is not turning a blind eye to the issue but any policy change or legislative initiative must be introduced on the basis of evidence, hence the study, which I hope will be completed as quickly as possible.

The programme for Government contained a commitment to reform the current legislation governing the right of employees to engage in collective bargaining, namely, the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2001, so as to ensure compliance by the State with recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. That was done by introducing the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2015, which we debated last week and which will be on the Statute Book at the end of this month.

Finally, I wish to mention the references to tendering in the charter, and the proposal that they would have a social or economic dimension. The Government has a reform programme in hand to modernise the public sector and improve service delivery. The Government recognises that public procurement is a key element of the programme, maximising the impact procurement can have in enabling communities to benefit in areas such as employment, training, assisting small business and promoting innovation. The Government is not opposed to the principle of community benefit and has established a social clauses project group to examine public contracts where social clauses can be deployed. That has happened, for example, in the case of the Grangegorman redevelopment project. In developing this area we must be careful not to fall foul of EU procurement rules. It would be a breach of the rules for a public body to favour or discriminate against particular candidates, and there are legal remedies which may be used against any public body infringing those rules. Therefore, while we should develop the area further, we must do so carefully.

I again thank the Independent Senators for tabling their motion today. I hope they will concede that the Government does take seriously the rights of employees and that it has taken measures to uphold and strengthen them. This is a subject that requires ongoing scrutiny. I commend my colleagues for raising the issue.