Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I thank Senator Cosgrove for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Peter Burke. The Government is fully committed to supporting workers and to ensuring fair wages for the lowest paid workers in our economy. The national minimum wage increased to €13.50 per hour on 1 January 2025, an increase of over 6%, which is ahead of projected wage growth across the economy. Approximately 195,300 workers directly benefited from this increase.

The Senator highlighted pay for young people. As the current system of youth rates is based on a percentage of the full minimum wage, when the minimum wage increases, these sub-minimum rates also increase, with young people in receipt of these rates seeing a commensurate increase in their wages.

Senator Cosgrove mentioned bogus self-employment. Chapter II of the EU platform work directive tackles the issue of misclassifying persons performing platform work as self-employed. It requires EU countries to set up clear procedures to determine the correct employment status. Work on the transposition of this directive is under way in the Department and will complement existing mechanisms for the determination of the employment status of individuals or groups.

Turning to interns, in March 2024, the European Commission proposed an initiative that includes a proposal for a directive on improving and enforcing working conditions of trainees and combating regular employment relationships disguised as traineeships. The directive includes a common framework of principles and measures to improve and enforce the working conditions of trainees and to combat employment relationships being disguised as traineeships, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is leading Ireland’s negotiations on the traineeship directive.

It is important to recognise the important role apprenticeships play in many sectors of our economy. Apprenticeship remains a vital pathway, with registrations up 51% since 2019, supporting national priorities like housing and infrastructure. This clearly shows apprenticeship is a valued option by both career seekers and employers. Minimum wage legislation does not apply to the remuneration of apprentices under the Industrial Training Act 1967 or the Labour Services Act 1987. This reflects the significant investment employers make in training, including mentoring and reduced productivity. The Government is committed to ensuring that employers and future workers continue to value apprenticeship and are incentivised to participate in apprenticeship programmes in all sectors of the economy.