I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 to provide for apprentices and young workers to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage.
I will share time with Deputy Boyd Barrett. I am glad to be introducing this Bill. It is a Bill to end the super-exploitation of young workers and apprentices. We introduced a similar Bill in the last Dáil to abolish sub-minimum wage rates for workers aged under 20. At the time, the Government claimed to be looking into abolishing these super-low rates of pay. A young worker can be paid as little as €9.91 an hour, which is €4.24 less than the national minimum wage. Of course, in reality, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have done nothing of the sort. They have ignored the recommendation of the Low Pay Commission and the vote of this Dáil to do away with these sub-minimum wage rates. They are doubling down on shafting young people on pay just like they are shafting them on housing and the cost of living.
Research by the ESRI has shown that the percentage of workers on these super-low and super-exploitative rates of pay has doubled since 2020. The national minimum wage has gone up, although it is still entirely inadequate. The result is that greedy employers are using sub-minimum wage rates for young people as a loophole to get out of paying even that inadequate minimum wage. We have gone from 20% of young workers being paid sub-minimum rates in 2020 to 30% now, a massive jump of about 30,000 young people.
The justifications used by bosses for this are outrageous. I had to listen to some of them in the committee that deals with this area. ISME, the Irish SME Association, has claimed that exploiting young people in this way " is of greater long-run benefit and importance for poorer social classes where education is their way out of lower-skilled employments." It also claimed that paying young workers the national minimum wage might cause them to "favour gratification". This is the type of attitude towards young people we are dealing with. It is like something out of the Dark Ages.
What is also out of the Dark Ages are the levels of pay being paid to apprentices. First-year craft apprentices are being paid €7.67 an hour, which is €6.48 less than the national minimum wage. That is disgraceful. Their union, Connect, says that apprentices now usually start in their 20s rather than their teens. It says the average apprentice will have at least one child to support and that 60% are renting. They have rent and mortgages to pay. They also have to pay for their own tools, which can cost €1,000 or more in some cases. They often have to relocate around the country and pay course fees as well. How are they meant to survive on less than €8 an hour? It is an absolute joke. It is also proof that the Government is not serious about fixing the housing crisis. It should be doing everything in its power to attract young workers to take up apprenticeships rather than legalising this super-exploitation.
