Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I congratulate him on some of the work he has done in recent times. There is no doubt that he is bringing employment into the country. I am concerned that we constantly look for big-ticket employment announcements by large companies, such as the Vodafone one today, which is, of course, tremendous.However, sometimes, particularly in rural Ireland, we should be looking to create five or six jobs here and there instead. If enough small companies employing five or six people were created, eventually we would have 150 jobs. I wonder if we are concentrating enough on that aspect. Perhaps there is room for the education and training boards, ETBs, to get together with county development officers to do some work in that area.

I am delighted Senator Power tabled this motion. She and Senator van Turnhout have been great advocates for the downtrodden in this country, the number of which is becoming fairly large the way things are going. We have a new term in this country which is "income poverty". It arises where a family, the people in the house, are working, but are living in constant poverty and are never going to get out of it. This causes me serious concern.

We are all aware of the Clerys debacle. Today the Tánaiste told the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that it will cost the country millions. We have Dunnes Stores and its appalling treatment of staff, who have been kept on low hours, low pay or a combination of both for years. However, this does not just happen in the private sector. Casualisation has become a feature of public sector work and I am not just talking about work at the bottom of the scale. Teachers, lecturers and nurses are being brought in on casual hours. What really annoys me when I look at that situation is that as a trade unionist, I, like my colleagues, have taken cases to the Labour Court and before rights commissioners. I recall taking one particular case to mediation, where the employer was told it was wrong. We moved from mediation to the rights commissioner, where the employer was told it was wrong and ordered to pay compensation. The employer decided not to take up the rights commissioner's judgment and forced us into the Labour Court. At the Labour Court, the employer was castigated for not doing the right thing by its employees and told to pay the compensation. I moved out of the role I was in but, as far as I recall, that case was ultimately taken to the courts to get the money paid over to those employees. This case involved a State employer using State money to block people's employment rights, which is simply wrong in every way.

Yesterday there was an announcement on 610 special needs assistants for schools. It was not announced that the work they are going into is fragmented. It is not right to have them sitting around the place all day waiting for a couple of hours work here and there. We have the issue of lone parents. We are constantly arguing in this Chamber and looking for the Minister to come in here to deal with the lone parents issue. The fact today is that a lone parent with 20 hours work is losing 16 hours per week and that is after family income supplement. A lone parent who has less than 19 hours will lose as much as €42 per week. We can ignore these things but ultimately it is grossly unfair.

I will be accused of politicking here but 25% of city and county councillors have no employment other than their representational role. One particular councillor who rang me recently has a life threatening disease, cannot work, has been told there is no sick pay and, because there is no proper PRSI, has no entitlement to PRSI benefits and will finish up in some means-tested system. This is totally and utterly wrong.

I heard something very interesting yesterday at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions event which stayed with me. It was from a Northern Ireland colleague who was talking about the equivalent of family income supplement, or tax credits, as they call them up there. The point she made was that we are subsidising bad employers. The congress has called for a fair living wage of €11.45 per hour and has circulated a document asking people to sign it to say they support the notion of a living wage. It would be something else if the Minister were to sign it and say he supports it, was prepared to back it and thinks it a fair, just and equitable thing to do. It would be an amazing move by a Minister in this Government or any Government to come out and say he or she supports people having a fair, decent livable wage with fair hours of work and fair terms and conditions of employment.

The Minister is doing an awful lot and is to be commended on what he is doing to bring employment back into the country. I believe in giving credit where it is due but there are employers in this country for a long time who have been treating their employees in an appalling way and that includes employers in the public sector. Much has been done. The industrial relations Bill will solve some of the issues and congress is happy to see it although there are some issues it would like to see changed in future upgrades or amendments to the Bill.

I will finish on this point. There is nothing worse than the pain of unemployment and of getting up every morning not knowing what to do for the day - I have been there - but what is hell on earth is having employment and not having enough money to do the things one would like to do. Most of us in this House have enough money to do the things we would like to do. Let us support congress on this matter. I thank my colleagues for tabling the motion.