Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

245.To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when the EU Directive on adequate minimum wages will be implemented by the Government; if apprentices will be included in this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25060/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in the European Union was published on 19th October 2022 and must be transposed by 15th November 2024. The Directive aims to ensure that workers across the European Union are protected by adequate minimum wages allowing for a decent living wherever they work.

The Directive includes three sets of measures:

1. One of the goals of the Directive is to increase the number of workers who are covered by collective bargaining on wage setting. It will require Ireland to develop an action plan to enhance collective bargaining coverage by the end of 2025.

2. To ensure minimum wages are set at adequate levels, the Directive also requires countries with statutory minimum wages, as in Ireland, to put in place clear and stable criteria for minimum wage setting, indicative reference values to guide the assessment of adequacy, and to involve social partners in the regular and timely updates of minimum wages.

3. The Directive provides for improved enforcement and monitoring of the minimum wage protection established in each country. The Directive introduces reporting by Member States on its minimum wage protection data to the European Commission.

My Department has received legal advice on the minimum wage elements of the Directive and work is underway to ensure transposition by the deadline of November 2024. Legal advice is that Ireland’s current minimum wage setting framework, namely the Low Pay Commission, is largely already in compliance with the provisions of the Directive.

A technical group has been established with Department officials and the social partners to examine what is required to implement the collective bargaining elements of the Directive. My Department has also requested legal advice as to whether any legislative change is required in order to transpose these elements into Irish legislation by the transposition deadline at the end of the year.

The Directive does not aim to harmonise the level of minimum wages across the EU, or to establish a uniform method for setting them, but obliges Member States to put in place clear and stable criteria for minimum wage setting.

Currently, apprentices are exempted from the right to receive the National Minimum Wage. When the National Minimum Wage was introduced in 2000, it was determined that apprentices would be excluded from the Act in recognition of the unique nature of such apprenticeships and the fact that a long-established practice for determining rates, which adequately protected apprentices, already existed. It was recognised that apprenticeships offered a unique combination of education and work experience, and that exempting apprentices from the National Minimum Wage would promote and encourage employers to focus on training apprentices, and offering opportunities to them, while at the same time recognising the cost to employers in terms of time invested and productivity forgone.

With the majority of apprenticeships, the rate of pay is agreed between the apprentice and the employer. For the 25 craft apprenticeship programmes, the minimum rates of pay applying under the employment contract are either agreed within the relevant sector, or are set out in the legally binding sectoral employment orders recommended by the Labour Court.

While any review of apprentice rates is a matter for the appropriate industrial relations structures as outlined above, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has responsibility for apprenticeship policy as it relates to education and training. That Department is engaging with stakeholders to consider the issue of apprentice pay and their inclusion in the National Minimum Wage.