Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I want to discuss terms, conditions and pay in the hospitality sector and the need for the Government to be much more proactive in trying to establish a joint labour committee in the sector. I have raised this with a number of the Minister of State's colleagues and I will ask her some of the same questions. I regret to say I did not get any answers on previous occasions, but I am optimistic today.

I will get straight to the heart of this issue. The average rate of pay in the hospitality sector according to the Government's CSO statistics for June this year is €12.54 per hour, a figure which includes the highest paid people in the sector. The bulk of the people in the sector, that is, the people who are changing our beds, serving our drinks and working behind counters get considerably less than €12.54 per hour. For the large part, they are earning the minimum wage or just above it. A EUROSTAT comparison done by Michael Taft showed that compared with people working in hospitality in other parts of the EU, our people would need a 50% pay rise just to gain equity with them. I have stated these statistics because I am sometimes told I have picked some bad examples. These are the statistics for the hospitality sector as a whole. People in the sector are paid 50% less than their European counterparts.

The terms and conditions in the sector are pretty appalling. I will give one example from the best hotel in Limerick, which I will not name. A contract states, in respect of a working week, that, "As a casual employee your hours will be communicated to you by the departmental rota." In other words, people do not know what hours they are working from one week to the next. I checked with some colleagues in hotels last week whether this is still the case, and nothing has changed since new legislation was introduced. Not only are hotel workers paid appallingly, most of the time they do not know what hours they will work from one week to the next.

I will read out some of the details of the findings of an independent research study by Dr. Deirdre Curran from NUI Galway on how people are treated in the sector: 76% of respondents to the survey said they experienced verbal abuse sometimes or often; 64% of workers in the hospitality sector said they experienced psychological abuse sometimes or often; 15% said they experienced physical abuse sometimes or often; 52% said they do not get the breaks they are entitled to; 42% said they had no written record of their contract term; 16% said they had no access to payslips; 55% said they had witnessed or experienced harassment based on sexuality, age or race, I know the Minister of State will be aware that most of the people we are talking about in the sector are women; 63% said they had experienced or witnessed bullying; and 48% said they had no voice or access to union representation.

My point is that we need action from the Government. We cannot let this appalling treatment of workers continue in the sector. I hope the Minister of State will have something positive to say today.