Paul Murphy demands €15 living wage, slams poverty pay

Thanks a lot to Nick Barry for bringing this forward. At the centre of this debate is one unassailable fact, not debatable, that the minimum wage in this country is a poverty wage. A full-time worker earning the minimum wage gets only 21,000 euros a year. That is 5,000 euros a year, less than the independently assessed minimum income needed for an acceptable standard of living for an individual without children. That is an unassailable fact that the government stands over to have minimum wage workers, even those without children, to be living in poverty. Does the government really think that it is acceptable, in 21st century Ireland, a country with immense wealth, some of the most productive workers in the world, that a full-time job is not enough to lift someone out of poverty? Yesterday, the Taoiseach actually, in response to this, he said, well, the answer to poverty and deprivation is work. But these people are working. They are not unemployed. They are working hard, they are working full-time, and they are in poverty. A worker works a full week and is not able to pay the bills. And that is why the essence of this point is that it is time to lift the minimum wage to a real living wage for all. No worker should be left in poverty, and that means fighting for a 15 euros an hour minimum wage. In this debate, there will be, and there are in public, lots of myths and half ideas spun out there about minimum wage workers, stories that are told to try to justify the payment of poverty wages. To listen to those who oppose increases in the minimum wage, you would have the impression that minimum wage workers are all young, part-time workers, earning a bit of pocket money for the weekend. That obviously wouldn't justify paying poverty wages, but it's not even true. Two-thirds of those on the minimum wage are full-time workers. Ninety percent are in permanent positions. We have the most educated minimum wage workers in Europe. These are hard-working people, doing essential work and trying to make a living, and they deserve a decent raise. The German government, under pressure, just announced that they will increase their minimum wage to 12 euros this year. If the government won't agree with our demand for 15, well, will the Irish government at least do 12, which would be a bout at the real increase of inflation for those who are on low income. One in four workers in Ireland earn less than 12 euros an hour. That includes huge numbers of workers in child care, in retail and hospitality. Those precisely who were clapped by the government over the course of the last two years. They don't want applause, they want respect, and they want a decent wage. In the US, the Fight for 15 campaign won a $15 minimum wage being phased in in a number of different states. We need a similar movement here to fight for a 15 euros an hour minimum wage. Many TDs, when this is discussed, they balk at the idea of 15 euros an hour. They suggest it's an unreasonably high figure. But the reality is 15 euros an hour amounts to 2,500 euros a month, or 30,000 euros a year for a full-time worker. Ireland is a wealthy country. There is no reason why a full-time worker should be earning less than 30,000 euros. Look at rent. For a one-bedroom apartment in Dublin, it's 1,500 euros a month. How could anyone be expected to actually live a decent life, to raise a family, on less than 2,500 euros a month? The Taoiseach, who presumably opposes a 15 euro an hour minimum wage, earns 215,000 euros a year, while a minimum wage worker earns 10% of that, 21,000. That is simply not right. How can it be justified to earn 10 times that of an ordinary worker? Does the Taoiseach think that that's fair? Does the government think that that's fair? Or take someone like Paul Reid, head of the HSE, earning 20 times the wage of a minimum wage cleaner, for example. We need to raise the wages for the low paid, and cut them for the tiny few at the very top. Look at rents continuing to go through the roof. The latest staff.ie rental price report. In South County Dublin, for example, the average price of a one-bed apartment is now 1,549 euros. A three-bed house is 2,290 euros. Rents are going up 5 or 10% across the country. Energy bills went up 40% or more, and yet the minimum wage went up less than 3%. That is a cut in real income for the low paid in this country. While TDs have gotten pay rise after pay rise, and one senior official recently got an 81,000 euros raise, low paid workers are expected to make do with less. If TDs' wages were linked to the minimum wage, we would have seen a proper increase a long time ago. This also takes place in the context of the cost of living crisis and the debate about that. We should remember that when we raised this last year, the government told us that the price hikes are transitory. We warned in October with the first dull motion about this crisis, and again in December, that anything less than direct state intervention using powers already available to them would not address the crippling rise in energy and heating costs. Then they announced a tiny subsidy of 100 euros for electricity consumers. The government is obviously trying desperately to distance itself from Minister Sean Fleming's comments about shopping around, but the truth is that's the government program. Go and read the amendment that was put forward to gut our motion on the energy prices crisis. The bottom line point is the market will provide. Again and again in answers to PQs and in answers in the Dáil here, the government has put forward the idea that you need to go and shop around. Because the reality is the government is ideologically opposed to imposing regulation on market forces or taking things out of the control of the market and into public ownership. It pretends that nothing can be done. This is a global rise in inflation. And what is hidden under that is the fact of profits. This is, to a substantial degree, a profit-driven inflation in this country. It is not a kind of automatic fact of life that big business just keeps the big profits that they're making. Year in, year out, the costs go up for them and they just pass those costs on and ordinary people's lives get harder. The question of who pays the price for inflation, that's an active political and class struggle question. And the determination of big business and of the government is that workers pay the price for inflation. Both by seeing declining wages in real terms and seeing increased prices. But all the indications so far from the balance sheets coming out of big business is that they're not hurting at all. Shell and BP announced last week that they're on track to make £40 billion sterling worth of profits this year. ESB announced significant profits, an increase in profits last year. Energia, significant increase in profits. And that's, we don't accept that. And we say that that can be cut into by, on the one hand, price controls, which the government has the power to do and refuses to do it. But secondly, by workers fighting for a pay increase. Across the country, workers are demanding pay rises and they're right. If workers don't organise and speak up, they will lose out. But when they do fight back, they have power, they have extra power in the current situation of the economy and they can win real improvements. Before Christmas, for example, Dunstor's workers campaigned for and won a 10% increase. That should be an inspiration to other workers to do the same. To talk to their fellow workers, to link in with their union, to push for a meeting of all staff, to discuss a pay claim and to lodge a pay claim. The same goes for public sector workers. They should be organising now to demand an emergency pay increase to go beyond the rate of inflation. And for us, raising the minimum wage is a part of this. It not only helps the very low paid out of poverty, but by raising the wage floor, it helps to raise the wages of all workers. It also helps to strengthen the negotiating power of other workers who are already above the rate of the minimum wage. The final point I will make is that we also need to end age discrimination when it comes to the minimum wage in this country. It is blatant discrimination that people under the age of 20 will be entitled to earn less than the minimum wage. They are doing the same work and they should be paid the same for it. Thank you.