Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is nice to see the Tánaiste. He is very welcome. To begin I will deal with those new restrictions announced on Friday. I will not play politics with Covid-19 and we should follow the science. I appreciate the fact the Cabinet has moved to provide supports that are very badly needed.

I have a couple of examples for the Tánaiste. I spoke to somebody in one of the major hotels in Limerick who told me ten big nights had been planned over Christmas and that has now been reduced to two. It is a huge impact and we all know many of these businesses are depending on Christmas trade in order to keep going and buy time, effectively, as we head into the new year. I also had the pleasure of being in west Cork a week and a half ago and saw an event there drop from 100 people to 30 people because of uncertainty. We can understand why the uncertainty occurs but it demonstrates again the impact on businesses. There has been a fair degree of frustration because of mixed messaging from the Government but I am not saying anything new in that regard. It was interesting to hear it put to me so strongly by somebody very much of a different political persuasion. It is important we put controls in place.

If people are on the PUP but did not manage to get back into the hospitality business, they would be on a lower payment. Now, if people lose a job because of the most recent announcements, they are on a higher rate of payment. The higher rate is correct but it is fundamentally unfair that one worker would have a reduced payment while another has the higher payment. Sinn Féin has argued for some time, as the Tánaiste knows, that we should maintain the PUP because of the degree of uncertainty out there. I would like to see the Tánaiste address that matter as it strikes me as extremely unfair that one worker could be on significantly less of a payment because he or she was not able to win back a job in the hospitality sector.

The Tánaiste gave quite a thoughtful speech so I want to be constructive and work through some of the key points he raised. I will hone in on the theme of an economic recovery plan and building a more inclusive economy with better conditions for workers. It is a theme I would certainly warm to. I will hit on some of the topics raised by the Tánaiste.The first is the issue of sick pay. It is something that we were promised a year ago. We saw it in the joint committee on enterprise, trade and employment two weeks ago. It was a hell of a long time coming. Given the great crises we have seen across workplaces this year we really should have acted sooner. I am just worried about how much longer it is going to take us to get this Bill onto the floor of the Oireachtas and into law. The Tánaiste might let me know what his timeline is. I can assure him that our committee will not be a delaying factor.

I am concerned that the Bill as currently structured does not specify that move to ten days' leave over a number of years. It basically leaves it up to statutory instruments to bring that into being. I am concerned because that allows wriggle room to row back on the ten days. We have been an outlier on sick pay for an awful long time as the Tánaiste knows, in terms of our European colleagues. It is really important that we get that legislation in place, that it specifies a move to ten days' leave and that we see it implemented, rather than the next time we have a recession some Minister saying we cannot move ahead with it because it would be too risky. Every worker deserves a decent rate of sick pay. It is not something we should have to wait this long for. I would like to get a timeline from the Tánaiste on that point.

The Tánaiste's point about the living wage is welcome. However, so far this Government has moved the minimum wage up by just 40 cent in the first two budgets. It is on schedule to make an increase of just €1 over the lifetime of the Government if it continues at the rate it is going. In actual fact we are falling further behind the living wage, which has moved up to €12.90. The gap has increased under the current Government. What concrete steps is it going to take? We need a step change to ensure that people who work for a living are able to earn a living. That is not happening for too many workers at the moment. If we are going to build back better, and we often use that phrase, we need to see concrete actions to deliver that. One of those concrete actions is a step change in respect of the minimum wage moving to a living wage. If the Tánaiste has a timeline or plans for how he is going to change matters in that regard, I would really like to hear about them.

I am pleased to hear about the protection of tips Bill. I have been following it. The Tánaiste may be aware that my own Bill is still live. It cleared all Stages in the last Seanad. We really need to make sure the Government gets this right. There is a massive issue with tips in the hospitality sector. One in three workers were not getting their tips in the most recent research. Is the Government going to establish a legal right to tips for employees? That is what needs to happen. That is what my Bill will do. Is the Tánaiste going to deal with the scam that is service charges? There was a lot of research done on this and we know that far too many hotels and restaurants were charging service charges and not passing them on to employees. I need to understand what the legal consequences of the Tánaiste's proposed legislation will be to deal with that issue.

More fundamentally we have an issue in respect of low pay. We have one of the largest proportions of workers on low pay of any state in Europe. Figures ICTU referenced just after the budget indicated that 750,000 employees earned less than €400 per week in 2019, representing 31% of total class A PRSI employees. The budget did nothing in respect of that issue of low pay. If the Tánaiste is talking about better conditions for workers, he must be talking about better pay for workers. I want to understand the steps the Government is going to take to ensure that happens. There is one simple step it could take. I know the social partners, my colleagues in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and my own union, SIPTU, have stressed the need to establish a statutory right to collective bargaining. If we allow workers to bargain for their pay they will bargain better pay and it will be better for everybody concerned and will be a much more equal and egalitarian society. It was very disappointing to note earlier this year that the Tánaiste wrote to the European Commission asking that the EU directive on minimum wages would not be binding. That directive contains a lot of proposals for increasing collective bargaining across the State. Has the Tánaiste changed his mind in that regard? There seems to be a growing wind of support for that minimum wage directive and I would like to know where the Tánaiste stands on it now. The best way to increase working conditions is to give workers a right to collective bargaining.

My last point has been raised a number of times by me and others. It falls under the enterprise category. We know that no one is safe until everyone is safe in respect of vaccines. We know that we need to see a waiver of intellectual property rights for these vaccines in order to let developing countries develop their own generic versions of those vaccines and get their populations vaccinated. In Africa at the moment just 4% of the population is vaccinated. To be frank, we have heard consistently that the Tánaiste is one of the key people in the Cabinet blocking the waiving of intellectual property rights which in turn is denying people vaccines.The most recent horrifying figure is that we have had 5 million deaths in the developing world because of a lack of vaccines. I repeat that figure, 5 million deaths.

I respectfully ask the Tánaiste to change the Government's stance on dropping intellectual properties rights, allowing those rights to be waived in order that people in developing countries can get access to those vaccines and, hopefully, then we can move to a better stage. Otherwise we will go from variant to variant. It is extremely disappointing to see the Government aligned with big pharma and against the people of the world. Let us be clear, that is what the Tánaiste and his Government have been doing. I would like a positive response in that regard.