Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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291. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to progress legislation to introduce a universal living wage; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14358/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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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 in 2015 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 1 January last.

The Commission presented its second report in July 2016 and its recommendation that the minimum wage be increased to €9.25 per hour was subsequently accepted by Government and came into effect on January 1 last.

The Deputy might note that the most recent figures published by EUROSTAT show that Ireland has the second highest national minimum wage of any country in the EU at €1,563 per month, behind only Luxembourg whose minimum wage is €1,999 per month. (EUROSTAT for comparison purposes converts countries hourly or weekly rates into monthly rates). 

I have no plans to bring forward proposals outside of the work of the Low Pay Commission.