Thursday’s engagement in the Dáil between Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke and People Before Profit–Solidarity TD Paul Murphy is just the latest tussle in the long running saga of the sub-minimum wage rates paid to under 18s.
The Minister’s announcement that the Government has agreed the rates will not be done away with before 2029 was “incredible”, “viciously anti-worker” and the wider policy “disgusting”, according to Murphy.
The defence of the decision was unlikely to do much to bring him around.
The Government had, said Mr Burke, introduced then extended statutory sick pay entitlements and provided workers with the right to request remote working.
Critics might point to the fact the former roll-out has been paused and the code of conduct which provides for the latter has come to be regarded as a checklist for employers wishing to decline requests with all of the cases in which refusals were challenged failing.
Neither will Mr Burke’s reminder that the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation was actually that the sub-minimum rates, which currently range from €9.45 an hour for someone under 18 to €12.15 for a 19 year-old be abolished “no sooner than” January 1st of this year carry much weight with his critics on the matter.
It seems rather unlikely the commission’s members envisaged the date in question being more than four years after that date.
Burke suggested the move, or lack of it, was of little consequence in any case as only 5 per cent of 19 year-olds actually receive the sub-minimum rate specified. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and National Youth Council of Ireland tend to suggest that if so few people are impacted, it is all the more unnecessary to subject them to what they regard as miserly rates.
On Thursday, however, the Minister said abolishing them would represent another blow to the hospitality sector in which many of the affected workers are employed. Pressed on the matter he said the data to justify the delay would be published soon.
We shall see. The data that had been expected to justify the VAT rate cut for hospitality was due to be published in November but has yet to see the light of day.
