Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Unfortunately Fianna Fáil felt it necessary, on the instructions of those they invited into the country, to slash the rate of the national minimum wage by €1 per hour. Unfortunately, that calls into question Fianna Fáil’s supposed credentials as a social democratic party.

Notwithstanding that, I recognise the contribution that Fianna Fáil did make regarding the introduction of the national minimum wage in the first place, which was introduced by the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Harney, to her credit.

The Low Pay Commission is very important institutional protection for people on low pay and is a bulwark against the scourge of low pay and the damage that it can do to citizens, families and society. One reason why the Low Pay Commission was introduced was to ensure that we, as a society, can guard against any political opportunism that may arise in the future or, when the next crash comes, that whatever parties happen to be in government at the time cannot simply decide at the stroke of a pen to reduce the rate of the national minimum wage and that one must go through the Low Pay Commission first and examine the evidence base that it creates in defending and protecting the principle and the philosophy of the national minimum wage.

I worked to establish the Low Pay Commission, which was established in 2015, and it is something that of which I and the Labour Party are proud and of which the previous Government can be proud. One task I asked it to undertake then was a review of the appropriateness of the continuation of subminimal rates as they apply in law to young and inexperienced workers and to those who are undergoing courses of training. I have long been of the view that there is no legitimate reason, economic or social, that a young person who is in work should be paid any less than an older work colleague. Furthermore, I never believed it should ever be State policy, enshrined in law as it is now, that young people on the national minimum wage should be disadvantaged in the way that the National Minimum Wage Act, as currently constructed, allows them to be. We know that good policymaking requires evidence, and the evidence produced by the Low Pay Commission, through its research engagement with the ESRI, is very interesting. I hope contributors to the debate have taken the time not just to read that information, but also to digest it and apply it to what we are trying to achieve this evening. There is no evidence that paying the adult rate to young workers would incentivise them to drop out of school or education. We know, as alluded to by Senator Ruane earlier, that the key drivers of retention of students in school, on post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses or in third level education are usually related to socio-economic factors, academic ability and interest and confidence in the student's own ability. The evidence suggests that the impact of national minimum wage policies one way or another on retention rates in education is small and weak.

We have more evidence and hard data on the national minimum wage now than we have ever had in the past, thanks to the work of the Low Pay Commission and its engagement with the ESRI on its behalf, and the work the CSO does through the data it collects in the quarterly national household survey, QNHS. What these figures tell us is interesting. They suggest that the use of the sub-minima rates is exceptionally low, with about 5,800 employees telling the QNHS in 2016 that they were on an age-related sub-minima rates, with about 5,500 young workers stating they were on a training rate. We also know anecdotally - and trade unions and others have evidence to suggest this - that the training rate has been abused wholescale over the years. The Low Pay Commission recognised this in part 2 of the report it published last year, which recommends the total abolition of the training rates because they are being abused to lower wage costs - and not in the context of any recognised, structured or meaningful training opportunity or series of programmes that would be provided to young people. Will the Minister let the House know whether she intends to table an amendment to legislation to abolish the training rates as provided for in the National Minimum Wage Act 2000?

There is also fundamentally an inarguable, unanswerable case for getting rid of, and not tweaking or simplifying, the sub-minima rates, as the Low Pay Commission suggested in part 2 of its report. In the interests of the principles of equity, fairness and equality, and that critical principle for the labour movement of equal pay for equal work, we should dispense with the discrimination in the application of sub-minima rates to young people and consign those rates to history once and for all. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on this proposition.