Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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28. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he and his officials considered the independent report by a person (details supplied) entitled Low Pay: The Nation's Challenge and the Resolution Foundation Review of the Future of the National Minimum Wage: The Final Report, before concluding the draft heads of the low pay commission legislation. [12099/15]

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I am aware of the report referred to by the Deputy and commissioned by the UK Labour Party who requested Alan Buckle, former‎ Deputy Chairman at KPMG International, to investigate how to restore the value of the UK minimum wage, ensure that where sectors can afford to pay more, they do, and promote the Living Wage.

The report, published in May 2014, notes that the UK National Minimum Wage has been a great success, boosting pay at the bottom without loss of jobs. The report seeks to build on the success of the Low Pay Commission in a wider context of building an economy with fewer low skill, low paid jobs and more high skill, high paid jobs.

The position in Ireland is quite different to the UK in that, in addition to the National Minimum Wage and the new Low Pay Commission, the Government has also legislated for Joint Labour Committees and has also brought forward comprehensive legislation to replace the Registered Employment Agreement system. Both of these initiatives provide for rates of pay above or significantly above the National Minimum Wage that can be given statutory backing on a sectional basis. Thus the Report's views of a wider remit for the UK LPC do not necessarily translate to a very different Irish position.

Making work pay continues to be a cornerstone of this Government's agenda and the setting up of a Low Pay Commission is one of the key commitments in the Statement of Government Priorities agreed in July last.

The General Scheme of the National Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Bill was approved by Government in January. The General Scheme, together with a Regulatory Impact Assessment, has been published on my Department's website and forwarded to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for pre-legislative scrutiny.

The principal function of the Low Pay Commission will be, on an annual basis, to examine and make recommendations to the Minister of the day on the national minimum wage, with a view to securing that the national minimum wage, where adjusted, is adjusted incrementally over time having had regard to changes in earnings, productivity, overall competitiveness and the likely impact any adjustment will have on employment and unemployment levels.

Alongside examining the National Minimum Wage, the Low Pay Commission will also be tasked with examining matters related generally to the functions of the Commission under the Act. This work programme will be agreed by Government and presented to the Commission in February of each year.

I am conscious of the need to balance a basic statutory minimum pay rate that is fair, with one that is sustainable and which allows employers to continue to create quality jobs.

In this context, a particular function of the Commission will be to ensure that any advice or recommendations it makes to Government is evidence-based; utilising agreed data, carrying out research and consultations with employers, workers and their representatives and taking written and oral evidence from a wide range of organisations. This is to ensure that any suggested changes to the National Minimum Wage have minimum adverse impact on employment and competitiveness.

This approach proposed draws on that adopted in the UK where, since 1997, the recommendations of the UK Low Pay Commission have brought about a progressive increase of the minimum wage that has little detrimental effect on the functioning of the economy or labour market.