Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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77. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the estimated median hourly wage used by the Low Pay Commission each year since 2020, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24831/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Low Pay Commission’s 2024 Report, Recommendations for the National Minimum Wage, provides estimates of the national hourly median wage from 2020 to 2024.

The table below shows the Low Pay Commission’s estimates of the hourly median wage derived from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the CSO’s Structure of Earnings Survey (SES).

The CSO makes available to the Low Pay Commission a data set where the LFS data is matched with quarterly wage data from tax returns made available through PMOD, the Revenue Commissioner’s PAYE modernisation system, to provide estimates for up-to-date hourly median wage data. These estimates are shown as “LFS + PMOD Earnings Data”.

It is important to note that the SES is currently conducted once every four years. The CSO calculates a national hourly median wage using this survey data. The latest median wage estimated by the CSO using this survey data is €19.60 for reference year 2022.

The figures provided in italics, i.e. SES 2023 and 2024, and LFS 2024, are estimated by the Low Pay Commission based on the average of the wage growth figures for these years in the Department of Finance, Stability Programme Update 2024; Central Bank of Ireland, Quarterly Bulletin No. 2 2024 and the European Commission, Spring 2024 Economic Forecast.

As I previously advised the Deputy, I expect that the Low Pay Commission will provide an estimate of the 2025 median wage as part of their recommendations for the 2026 National Minimum Wage. The Commission may also provide more up to date estimates of the 2024 hourly median wage, using data recently released by the CSO.

I look forward to receiving the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations for the 2026 National Minimum Wage in July.