Minimum wage rise of 10 cent a ‘slap in the face’ for low paid

The national minimum wage is to increase by 10 cent per hour to €9.25.

However, the Labour Party has strongly criticised the rise as “ a slap in the face for about 70,000 low paid workers”.

Labour senator and spokesman on Labour Affairs and Workers Rights Ged Nash said the “paltry” increase would be eroded by inflation next year.

The 10 cent increase in the national minimum wage to €9.25 an hour was recommended earlier this year by the Low Pay Commission and subsequently accepted by the Government.

Mr Nash argued that the Government had “failed to meet its own commitments to raise the minimum wage to €10.50”.

“At this rate of increase, as announced by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan on Tuesday, it will take almost 13 years to reach the target this administration set itself in the Programme for Government just last May.”

Mr Nash said the 10 cent per hour increase “contrasts heavily with the 50 cent per hour rise Labour introduced on January 1st.”

“For a full-time worker on the national minimum wage, last year’s rise was the equivalent of two week’s extra wages in terms of take-home pay. A solemn promise was made by Fine Gael and the Independents that the minimum wage would lift to €10.50 during the term of this Government.”

“In order to achieve this, the mandate of the Low Pay Commission which Labour in government set up must be amended in law to allow it to work with government to phase in the necessary increases. Fine Gael TDs cannot hide behind the independence of the Low Pay Commission as an excuse to do little or nothing on the minimum wage.”

Mr Nash maintained that the independence of the Low Pay Commission was undermined the day Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance signed up to a €10.50 target for the minimum wage.

“They cannot have it both ways.”

“The Labour Party was up front about this in our manifesto and we made it clear that this process would include a further 50 cent an hour increase to the national minimum wage this year, building to a national living wage of approximately 60 per cent of median earnings by 2021. At today’s value, this would amount to around €11.30 per hour.”