Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 62: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will make a statement on the findings of the NESC report, Creating a More Inclusive Labour Market, that the richest 20% of the working age population earns 12 times as much as the poorest; and the actions he intends to take to bring about a reduction in this differential. [11232/06]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I presume the Deputy is referring to the National Economic and Social Forum, NESF, report that was published recently. Terms and conditions of employment are determined in the main by a process of voluntary collective bargaining between employers and employees or a trade union acting on their behalf. To support the process and ensure a level of fair play, a floor of statutory rights — for example, minimum wages, holiday entitlements and so forth — are in place that can be improved upon by negotiation but which cannot be taken away.

The position of the low-paid has improved through successive national partnership agreements, through increases in the national minimum wage and in the annual budgetary changes to taxation. Examination of statistical earnings produced by the Central Statistics Office shows that there is considerable uniformity in gross earnings increases across the economy over the five year period 2000 to 2004 and evidence of some compression of earnings differences within sectors.

Studies have found that the net earnings of a worker on the minimum wage have broadly kept pace with a worker on the average industrial wage. This is the case in terms of both gross and net earnings.