Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am familiar with the directive; I was involved in putting it together in my last job in government as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. It has two aspects. One relates to the national minimum wage and the other to collective bargaining. On the first part, relating to the national minimum wage, we are way ahead of it already. We established the Low Pay Commission during the Fine Gael-Labour Government a long time ago. We are now very much en routeto having a living wage in Ireland, calculated at 60% of the median wage. We could even get there as quickly as next year, given the significant increase of more than 12% in the national minimum wage due in January, running at roughly double the rate of inflation. I am proud to be part of the Government that has achieved that, as well as adding new protections and benefits like paid family leave and sick pay and, later this year, a pension for every worker, which we do not currently have, through auto-enrolment.

On collective bargaining, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Richmond, are preparing legislation in that regard, which will require good faith engagement between employers and the representative of employees, which may be trade unions or other mechanisms such as work councils. That legislation is currently being developed. It is important to point out, when it comes to collective bargaining legislation and the EU directive, that collective bargaining is not the same as forced union recognition; they are separate matters. There are ways to enable collective bargaining that can work, such as joint labour committees, JLCs, and joint industrial councils, JICs. We see that working in many sectors in Ireland, including the construction sector, for example. It is about more than minimum wages. It is also about terms and conditions, pay scales and protections, which is what we see in our employment regulation orders.

On a factual point, it is important to state again that poverty rates can go up and down in any given year but they are certainly lower than they were ten years ago. Poverty has trended downwards over the past ten years and income inequality has narrowed over the past ten years. I hope the Deputy will be able to acknowledge that in her response.

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