Madam, – Your Dáil report on the minimum wage (Home News, January 27th) carries the sub-heading: “Gilmore calls on Government to ‘come off the fence’ and assure there will be no cut”. A timely call, in view of the ongoing Government spin on such cuts.
But why is there no all-party unity to find even the suggestion of such a cut totally reprehensible? Why, following the self-destruction of the PD party, do we now have a Fianna Fáil-Green-exPD Coalition Government hell bent on outdoing any assault on the threshold of decency that the PDs might have been accused of in their heyday? Indeed, it was the then tánaiste and PD leader Mary Harney who introduced the minimum wage. True, she did not take on board the recommendation of the Government-appointed Minimum Wage Commission that such a rate should be set at two-thirds of median earnings. Had this happened, a rate of between €10.30 and €10.80 an hour should have been set in July 2007.
The rate set, €8.65, did no more than ensure that the value of the minimum wage first introduced in April 2000 was brought into line with average earnings increases occurring since then. Had Ms Harney’s original criteria continued to prevail, that rate should have been raised to €9.06 in July 2009.
The minimum wage, however, remained frozen at its July 2007 level, while another of Ms Harney’s original set of minimum wage principles was shamelessly violated in the interim. In 2001 the then PD tánaiste rightly proclaimed it was inappropriate to hit those on the minimum wage with any income tax on such meagre earnings. Nonetheless, as a result of last May’s income levy measures, the Fianna Fáil-Green- Harney Government has already cut the living standards of minimum wage earners by 2 per cent, leaving them with take-home pay of no more than €8.48 an hour. Any suggestion to hit the lowest of low paid workers with even more cuts should therefore be greeted with universal outrage no less than healthy contempt. – Yours, etc,