Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. I also thank the Minister for coming before us and congratulate her on her new job. It is lovely to see a woman here as a Minister. She is the first woman Minister we have had before us.

Any discussion around sustainable jobs must include a discussion of what constitutes a sustainable labour market. We know the labour market is crucial to creating sustainable jobs in communities and in terms of the economic, social and cultural well-being of society. According to data from the most recent quarterly national household survey for 2016, employment has increased by 2.4% in the year to the first quarter of 2016. This was an increase in total employment of almost 47,000 jobs, 31,000 of which were full-time and 16,300 of which were part-time. It is an increase of 2.1% in full employment and almost 4% in part-time jobs. While I welcome the increase in the number of people at work, I do so cautiously on the back of the recent CSO figures that provide us with evidence that there is zero jobs growth in the west. This is not a surprise to us living in the west; for every new job that is being created, there are job losses every day. We only have to look at the loss of over 200 jobs last week in Sligo with the closure of the family-owned McCormack Garages. I want to send the solidarity of this House to all of those affected by those job losses and their families.

I cannot mention job creation in the west and in rural Ireland without begging the Minister to speak to her ministerial colleagues about fast-tracking broadband. We need the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources here to discuss how we can fast-track it. It is not good enough to cite 2022 as a date in terms of broadband. I see the problem for myself. I cannot communicate with the Houses of the Oireachtas because I do not have proper broadband where I live. The Minister does not need me to tell her that without adequate broadband and telecommunications, the Government’s jobs plan is not worth the paper it is written on.

We need to talk about emigration and its impact in terms of the reduction in the number of unemployed people. Emigrants are employed in other countries.

Alongside the lack of employment opportunities we must examine the fact that the Irish labour market is characterised by major problems with low pay, the proliferation of precarious work and increasing industrial unrest, as was outlined. This promotes inequality and jeopardises our economic growth. Ireland now has the dubious distinction of having the second highest number of low-paid workers in the OECD. Contrary to the Government’s spin on figures quoted above, I find the high rate of increase in part-time jobs extremely worrying. I say this because all the research shows us that part-time workers make up a high percentage of those who are concentrated in low-paid employment sectors. They are the most vulnerable to exploitation, precariousness, low pay and if-and-when contracts. They also tend to receive less training and development. That is worrying in terms of how people progress. Low pay and weak workers’ rights architecture are bad for workers, the economy, communities, and society.

By continuing along the track of non-standard work, we are creating a whole new community that I call the working poor. They are the people who have to pay for everything and do not have adequate income to do so. They are the people who struggle to get to the end of the week or the end of the month, worrying whether they have enough to pay their ever-increasing bills. That is why we see such outrage in regard to bin charges and what that extra cost may mean for people. These are the mothers – it is mostly women – who look at their sick children and wonder if they can get through the night without bringing them to the GP because they cannot afford the €40, €50, or €60 fee they will have to pay. They are trying to balance between taking their child to the GP and doing their shopping at the weekend. That is the reality. They are the people I see every day. We must remember that these families are not just those working in the private sector; they are the low-paid workers in the public sector such as teachers, gardaí and clerical staff in local authorities. They are barely able to survive on the wages they are getting at the moment.

Low pay also puts significant pressure on the State in terms of social transfers, with the result that the State ends up supplementing the pay of vulnerable workers. In 2015 alone, the State spent a record €350 million on subsidising the income of thousands of families in low-paid work. The rapid rise in the number of workers in receipt of family income supplement and other social transfers – about 60% in recent years – is essentially topping up employers’ profit margins and highlights the extent to which workers and their families are at risk of poverty. This transfer of wealth from the State is, in essence, reproducing, year in, year out, huge profits for large companies that see nothing wrong with bullying and exploiting their workforce.