Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will begin by highlighting that as we end the month of June, a month of summertime, we have a new record number of patients on trolleys in University Hospital Limerick. The new record is 1,829. If we are creating new records of patients on trolleys in June, God help us when it comes to September, October and the onset of winter. I do not doubt that the Leader has requested a debate on the university hospital for me on a number of occasions. I would ask the Leader to do so again. It is not acceptable for the Minister not to come in here and talk to us about the crisis that, in fairness, Senators of all stripes have highlighted, certainly, for as long as I have been here. As for the suffering, I could spend the rest of my three minutes talking about it but I would rather be constructive and ask can we get the Minister in to see what actions he will take right now to try and help alleviate this crisis. There are solutions but the Minister needs to come and be accountable in relation to this issue.

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to attend the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media briefly. The committee heard a set of presentations from Dr. Deirdre Curran of NUIG, the respected and recognised academic expert in relation to the hospitality sector, and representatives from SIPTU and Unite the Union. Some of the statistics were stark. I recognise that we had a good day in terms of hospitality here in the Seanad yesterday in terms of the Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Bill 2022 - all parties deserve credit for that - but I am not hearing from the Government side of the House recognition that there is a fundamental problem in the hotel sector. Let me spell it out for the House. The following figures are from Fáilte Ireland's report on last year, Tourism Careers: Labour Research. Some 68% of workers in the hospitality sector are paid less than €12 an hour. I have to ask the question, how can one expect people to join that sector with a prospects of a real career in it when one is looking at seven out of ten workers earning less than €12 an hour? We know what the solution is.

I will give credit to Senator Pat Casey, himself a hotelier, who acknowledged here yesterday that we need a joint labour committee established. We need to put a floor of decency in place. We need to put wage progression in place so that when one starts as a barman or porter, one can get wage increases year after year. We need to have proper training in place. We need a floor of decency and the problem is the hoteliers refuse to engage with the joint labour committee process. In the context of the significant support the Government has given to the hospitality sector, it is entirely unreasonable for the hotels to act, effectively using this veto, to not negotiate with trade unions, to not allow a joint labour committee to take place and to not allow decent standards to be returned to the hotels sector. I am asking for an urgent debate on this topic. The hotel lobby is powerful, particularly with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, but there are too many people being let down for too long in the hospitality sector. These figures are the Government's. They are undeniable. We need change in the hospitality sector and we need the Government to lead from the front. I ask for a debate on the matter.