Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of hotel workers.The Leader might recall that a couple of weeks ago I raised the fact we intended to have a meeting. We had that meeting yesterday and I thank colleagues who attended. We had a very good attendance from all parties except one. Unfortunately, nobody from Fine Gael was able to attend which was a huge disappointment to the SIPTU delegation and the hotel workers who came along.

I ask for a debate specifically on the issue of the VAT rebate and the €500 million we subsidise hoteliers with each year. I want to raise it because the money should be going to health and housing. If we accept that the money has to keep going to hotels, at the very least the Government should insist that the Irish Hotels Federation, IHF, engages with workers. Standards in the vast majority of hotels are plummeting. Only one hotel in Cork - the Imperial Hotel - still deals with workers on a collective bargaining basis. There is only one such hotel in Limerick, which is the South Court Hotel. The vast majority of hotels, under direct instruction from the IHF, do not deal with unions nationally or locally and do not attend the Workplace Relations Commission. As a result, we have standards like this. We heard from one of the workers yesterday in one of the biggest five-star hotels in the country that on an eight-hour shift she has to clean 30 rooms on her own. It is the industry "standard" that is being applied. We have minimum wage jobs. We got to the bottom of the skills shortages we hear about with regard to chefs. The average wage of a chef in Ireland is €10 an hour. Even the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation has acknowledged that the problem of the skills shortage arose because the industry will not pay the necessary rates of pay.

I am asking for a debate because the Government has another opportunity to do the right thing. It has consistently failed to do it in previous years despite it being highlighted by me and others. The right thing to do is to tell the industry that before it is given the subsidy of €500 million it should sit down and engage and work out a sectoral employment order to raise standards and conditions for everyone in the industry. I ask that we have that debate as soon as possible.