Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I commend my colleagues from the Labour Party for tabling the Private Members' Bill. It is a worthy Bill and gives us an opportunity to debate something that we all know is an issue in Ireland today, namely, low pay. Low pay is a real problem in our country. We know this. We know the statistics show that we have one of the largest proportions of workers on low pay among the EU 27.

I will cut to the chase. The Minister of State could have adopted a different attitude this evening. The idea of postponing the Bill for 12 months, which effectively kills it and, let us be frank, is not good enough. As everyone has acknowledged, the craft rate for year one of a craft trade apprenticeship is €7.03. How can we be happy with this? Is it not something we need to tackle? We heard recently from the Minister Deputy O'Brien that one of the constraints, according to him, that helps explain the constant failure of the Government's housing policy is supply of staff. Here is a mad idea. Perhaps if we paid those apprentices a little better, we might have more people joining and tackling the issue.

Apparently the solution of the Minister of State is to postpone the reading of the Bill for 12 months. In the middle of a housing crisis and staffing crisis, when presented with a simple Bill to increase the rates of pay at the very bottom for these workers to help attract young people to these crucial apprenticeships, the answer of the Minister of State is not to do so but to postpone the Bill for 12 months while the Government thinks about it. Seriously, how on earth is this a credible response to a very modest and sensible Bill, particularly when I know that last March the Irish Congress of Trade Unions wrote to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to state the trade union movement believes the minimum wage exemption for apprenticeships, including craft apprenticeships, is no longer sustainable or fair, is counter-productive and should be abolished? Connect Trade Union has pointed out that, contrary to when the clause excluding its application to apprentices was included in the National Minimum Wage Act, many of those now undertaking apprenticeship have previously gone to college or undertaken other work and, as a result, are often older than the apprentices we saw previously.

The Government has had very good communication from ICTU and Connect Trade Union in particular to state there is a problem. Does anyone here think that €7.03 is okay as a first year rate of pay? Does the Minister of State think it is okay? A simple "Yes" or "No" in his response to the debate would be great. If he does not think it is okay, why on earth does he not do something constructive with the Bill and let it move on to Committee Stage? Let us continue the discussion. If the Minister of State has concerns about the Bill, we can tease them out on Committee Stage. That is what it is for. We can do pre-legislative scrutiny. The idea that the response from a Fianna Fáil Minister of State to an issue of shocking low levels of pay for apprentices is to postpone the Bill for 12 months and come back and talk about it next year, when we will probably be within six months of an election, is an abdication of duty. I cannot understand it. ICTU believes paying apprentices below the national minimum wage is a significant continuing factor to the low commencement rate for craft apprenticeships, especially in a tight labour market. It has to be. One can get paid €13 per hour right now in some of the better supermarkets. That is almost twice the first year rate of pay for making sandwiches. Yet the Minister of State will say this seems like a good discussion and we will pause it for 12 months. How many young people will leave the State in the next 12 months because of the rotten low rate of starting pay for apprenticeships? Does that matter to the Minister of State? If it does matter, I say respectfully to him that he is free to adopt a more progressive attitude on this matter this evening. He has the power. Why not accept the Bill, let it pass Second Stage and let our colleagues in the Labour Party bring it through to Committee Stage, which will not be for weeks? We only get one Private Members' business per term here, typically, as we do not have much representation. In that time, work through the Bill and try to make a difference for our young workers. Imagine the message the Minister of State is sending to young people this evening: “Yes, you are on €7 an hour. Sure we'll have a look at that again next year.” Really?