LEGISLATION TO allow for “inability-to-pay” clauses for firms in financial difficulty was “mere tinkering” with minimum wage orders, while “daft” laws such as a six cent an hour difference in rates for hairdressers and barbers remained in place.

Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkarmade the claim as Minister of State for Labour Affairs Dara Callearyintroduced legislation for firms who plead inability to meet "centrally-agreed terms" to seek to have a dispute over the matter resolved through formal procedures.

Mr Calleary said “it makes no sense to dismiss such ‘inability-to-pay’ mechanisms as symptomatic of a retrograde ‘race to the bottom’. On the contrary, they are a response to the situation of employers in temporary difficulty and incorporate built-in safeguards to ensure that the interests of employees are sufficiently protected.”

Mr Varadkar said a hairdresser cutting women’s hair was paid six cent more an hour than someone cutting men’s hair, “but if it’s a unisex salon it’s the male rate that’s paid”.

The same daft laws “fix wage rates for hotel staff in Co Dublin but not in the city centre, and limit pay rates for beef butchers but not fishmongers”.

The Fine Gael spokesman accused the Minister of State of “flunking” the challenge to reform “the Labour Court’s outdated and cumbersome wage-setting system”, which he described as cumbersome, outdated and “a recipe for chaos”.

He said the hotel employment regulation order applies to Co Dublin but not Dublin city, to Co Cork and Co Kerry but not Cork city. One set of rules applies to hair salons in Cork, with another for Dublin, Dún Laoghaire and Bray. “But there are no rules for all the rest of the country.”

Mr Calleary said the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill was part of a number of measures to strengthen employee rights and public confidence in the system of compliance. Successive national pay agreements have included such clauses.

“I want to provide that same flexibility and responsiveness within our sectoral-level wage setting mechanisms, and to ensure that necessary procedures and safeguards are in place to protect the rights of the workers affected.”

The Minister said such hardship clauses “can only be triggered by a real and measurable crisis of the firm, and include procedures for a third-party adjudication of the firm’s financial situation”.

Labour spokesman Willie Penrosewas concerned at "this mad rush, or a chorus trying to dismantle the wage structure, particularly at minimum wage level".

Legislation should be to secure the operation of the wage structure system from attack, “not to undermine it”.

“Without these agreements what we have is a free-for-all.”

Damien English(FG, Meath West) believed "the minimum wage is not where the problem is. It's the next level of pay, which is the minimum wage-plus."

He said: “The minimum wage is the bottom line and everyone else is demanding more than that.”

Business groups probably “want the minimum wage reduced so they can bring other wages down, but that’s unfair to the person on the minimum wage”.