Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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23. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he has read the report of the Living Wage Technical Group; and whether he proposes to bring forward legislation to deal with this issue. [28630/15]

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I note that, in its latest report, the Living Wage Technical Group has calculated the Living Wage in Ireland for a single-adult household to be €11.50 per hour. The new figure represents an increase of 5 cent per hour over the 2014 rate.

The Living Wage concept is grounded in the idea that a person's wage should be sufficient to maintain a safe, decent standard of living. Of course, it is not isolated from a State's taxation and social support systems.

So, at an individual level the resources required to achieve a minimum essential standard of living is very dependent on family circumstances and thus the interaction of individual earnings with household income and State-provided supports such as Child Benefit, Family Income Supplement as well as those available in relation to housing, education and health.

In the UK, it is a voluntary code with which some employers, who already pay in excess of the UK national minimum wage, have become associated. The Living Wage concept there draws its strength from the fact that it is a grassroots civil society campaign. At present, around 1,500 separate employers across the country have endorsed the approach. In the UK the Living Wage Foundation has calculated the 2015 UK Living Wage as £7.85 and £9.15 for London.

In its recent Budget the UK Government applied a concept of a National Living Wage by which companies will be required to pay a minimum of £9 an hour by 2020, applying to workers over 25.

The National Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Bill 2015 is expected to be enacted shortly. The Bill provides for the establishment of the Low Pay Commission whose main function will be, on an annual basis, to examine and make recommendations 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. The Commission was established on an interim basis in February 2015 and I expect to receive its first recommendation on the minimum wage following the enactment of the legislation.

While I am on record as endorsing the concept of a Living Wage I would differentiate between the application of a mandatory National Minimum Wage and a societal movement that would see employers volunteer to pay what might be considered to be a Living Wage.

I intend to hold a Living Wage forum in the Autumn, to which civil society organisations, trade unions and, crucially, employers will be invited to discuss the concept of a Living Wage in Ireland and whether and how it can be applied here.