Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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902. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the action she is taking to progress a motion (details supplied) which supported the call for an incremental increase in the minimum wage until it is set at 60% of median earnings and a living wage to be adopted throughout the public sector; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22720/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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904. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if she is considering measures to ensure that the Government leads by example and becomes a living wage employer by 2018 and that the living wage is progressively extended to State procured services in the areas of security, cleaning and hospitality; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22722/16]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 902 and 904 together.

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. 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 supports available in relation to housing, education and health all contribute to an individual’s standard of living.

It is important that Ireland’s statutory National Minimum Wage and the Living Wage concept are not conflated. The Living Wage is a voluntary societal initiative centred on the social, business and economic case to ensure that, wherever it can be afforded, employers will pay a rate of pay that provides an income that is sufficient to meet an individual’s basic needs, such as housing, food, clothing, transport and healthcare. The Living Wage is voluntary and has no legislative basis and is therefore not a statutory entitlement. It is different to the National Minimum Wage which is a statutory entitlement and has a legislative basis.

The Low Pay Commission was established last year and its primary function is to, on an annual basis, 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 presented its first report in July 2015 in which it recommended an increase of 50 cents per hour to the minimum hourly rate bringing it to €9.15. That increase, which was accepted by Government, came into effect on 1st January last.

The Commission is due to submit its second Report today. Any recommendation made by the Commission will be considered by Government in the context of Budget 2017.

Issues relating to Public Sector employees and their terms and conditions of employment are a matter for my colleague, Pascal Donohoe TD, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Issues relating to the tendering of public contracts are also outside my remit and should be addressed to the Office of Public Procurement which operates as an office of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.