Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have just come from a meeting with the Mandate trade union across the road in Buswells, at which it highlighted a report it is launching today, “Smoke and Mirrors”, which highlights key issues affecting retail workers across Ireland. I am going to make a political point, by the way. It would be nice if, once in a while, we saw someone from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael attend a union meeting when they come to make their presentations. Again, parties from the left, like ourselves, were there but there was nobody from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. That is genuinely a shame because they would have heard workers’ voices explaining the fact there is a major issue in the industry with not getting enough hours of work. What is happening is that employers are using pools of labour and giving workers flexible scheduling. Those workers who are the good boys and girls might get some hours but any worker who raises an issue will not be on the schedule for the following week. This is based on a survey of 3,000 workers, so it is not anecdotal.

The other myth that is out there is that it may be students who are working in retail but that is absolutely not the case. Only 3% of those surveyed showed that study was a reason they could not do more hours.

There are fixes available for this. One of the fixes is to just strengthen the existing miscellaneous provisions Bill to ensure that existing workers get first option for hours, which is a very reasonable point that all of us should be able to agree on. The second point is to finally get rid of the sub-minimum rates of pay, something that Sinn Féin and the Labour Party have been trying to do for a number of years. There is no justification for paying young people less for doing the same job than somebody who is older, but that is what is happening at the moment, particularly across the retail sector in Ireland.

Sinn Féin has produced a Bill in this regard. I hope we will bring it through the Seanad in the coming months and I hope it will get the support of all in this Chamber. I am calling for an urgent debate in regard to the current state of work in the retail sector to see what we can do to ensure that people who work for a living can earn a living.