Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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58. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his views on the increasing numbers of low paid or part-time workers and the impact of this on wage inequality here, which according to research carried out by UNITE is the second highest in the EU-15, and in view of the recent decrease in the number of persons on the live register; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2777/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My colleague the Minister for Jobs Enterprise and Innovation has responsibility for legislation and regulation in relation to statutory minimum wage levels and to conditions of employment.

However, I can say that it is not accurate to suggest that part-time work has been an important element in recent employment growth. In the four years ending in the third quarter of 2016, employment increased by 199,000. Within this total, full-time employment increased by 184,000 while part-time employment grew by only 15,000. Indeed the number of part-time workers who describe themselves as “under-employed” – in other words, working part-time because they could not find full-time work – actually fell by 47,000 during this period. The fall in unemployment (and in the Live Register) in recent years is therefore primarily due to growth in full-time, not in part-time employment.

In relation to wages, wage inequality in Ireland is above the average for the EU member states. Eurostat data for 2014 indicate that 21% of workers here earn an hourly wage which is less than two-thirds of the median wage – defined in the data as “low-paid”. On this particular measure of inequality, Ireland ranks seventh highest in the EU, and second-highest in the EU-15.

However, under this Eurostat definition, the threshold for low pay is set relative to the level of earnings in an individual country, rather than to the absolute value of the wage itself. Because median wages in Ireland are among the highest in the EU, the “low-pay threshold” is also relatively high – at €13.44 per hour, as compared with €8.80 per hour for the EU overall, and, for example, €9.96 in France or €9.87 in the UK. The low-pay threshold in Ireland is in fact close to the median wage in either of the two countries mentioned.

Finally, it should also be noted that, while inequality in market incomes in Ireland is relatively high, the Irish tax and welfare system does more to offset this inequality than is the case elsewhere in the EU.