Richard Boyd Barrett: End Discrimination in Youth Minimum Wage

There's a film called No Country for Old Men. This is no country for young people, because you discriminate against young people in terms of their entitlement to the minimum wage. And young people... It's 153. We'll introduce legislation to raise the minimum wage for workers under the age of 20 and apprentices in their first two years. So we have a discriminatory regime when it comes to the minimum wage, where people under 20 get paid either 90% of the minimum wage, 80% or sometimes as low as 70% of the minimum wage. And apprentices, who we need a lot more of to help us build the houses we need in this country, in their first and second years, also earn less than minimum wage. So hardly an incentive for young people to stay in this country. And what I'm asking is that you would ensure that whether you're a first or second year apprentice, that you get at least the minimum wage. And that similarly for those under 20, these discriminatory rates of minimum wages are got rid of. And that they are entitled to the full minimum wage. Thank you, Ciarán, and I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for his question. First of all, we're very clear that we want to see real wage growth in the economy. We saw from the CSO index in December that all 13 sectors of the economy are growing, but critically that we are seeing real wage growth. I know that will be a challenge across 2026. I note your concerns in relation to the sub-minimum rates, but we were very clear in relation to our concerns for small businesses, for corner shops, for that developmental piece in terms of early years career that you get experience from. I'm particularly thinking of our corner shops, the imposition that I would put potentially of 30% of additional uplifting costs on them, really threatening their viability. And obviously the unintended consequences in relation to third level education, you have to be careful of as an unintended consequence of these decisions. I would say that Minister Lawless is working on our action plan for apprenticeships. I think that is key and you do raise a very valid point in terms of making them attractive and ensuring that we're bringing that skills in which are critical for construction sector, for our trades, some which are exceptional in terms of the career pathway that they offer. Critically, as a government, when we brought that parity of esteem, ensuring that we have through the CSO process, that parity of esteem between your third level education and your apprenticeships has been a very strong signal from the government. But particularly, we have seen a huge amount of improvement in, and we put forward a reasoned amendment here earlier on, to the huge amount of improvement we've seen in workers' rights in this country from the work in relation to the agility, to remote working, through the trajectory for a living wage, through the various different schemes to support workers, tips legislation, the ban on zero hour contracts, the right to disconnect, so many different areas that we've made progress on. And particularly with our action plan for collective bargaining, which we brought in ahead of schedule, and I gave that commitment despite what happened with the ECJ case. Again, that gives us a good pathway for continued improvements in workers' rights. Okay, well you seem a bit more sympathetic on the apprentices, but would you do something about it? There's higher education committees recommending a report. It's ridiculous when we desperately need qualified apprentices in the trades in particular, but in many, many areas of the economy for first and second years to be paid, if they're 7.67 in their first year or 11.50 in their second year, it's pathetic. Many of them are in their early 20s, some of them are paying rent, have families, so they need to be paid properly. I also disagree with you. Young people, corner shops or anything else, should not be based on exploiting young people. They should be paid the minimum wage. Thank you, Cahir Locke. I don't think they're exploiting young people, to be fair. And to be fair to so many of the communities that have small shops, that really service the community and provide a huge resource, particularly socially, to so many villages right across the country. Absolutely, in relation to apprenticeships, I think we have a lot of room for improvement in that regard. We're working with Minister Lawless's department on the action plan and to improve conditions and to make them more viable career choices, because those are the skills of the future and which a growing dynamic economy needs. So I'm happy to work with the Deputy in that regard.