Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her response and I noted the engagement earlier with another Deputy on this matter. I spoke about the importance of the national minimum wage, moves to a living wage and setting a higher floor of minimum wage adequacy below which no decent society should allow workers to fall. More important still is the transposition of the collective bargaining element of the EU minimum wages directive. We need enhanced collective bargaining coverage in this country. Fairness for workers can only be achieved by extending that coverage. Central to that is the right to organise. This means workers having access to their trade union officials and all the supports that trade unions provide to workers individually and collectively.

It was mentioned that an examination of enhancing the coverage of joint labour committees and wage-setting mechanisms more generally was under way. That is part of the solution, but it is not the panacea. The JLC system does not overpromise and does not overstate its work or utility. It is limited in its coverage and in what it can do. In the interests of working people, I want the Minister of State to commit to a maximalist approach to the directive’s transposition.

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