TAOISEACH Micheál Martin says the government is considering introducing a ‘living wage’ in a bid to fight income inequality.
The Taoiseach says that the Covid-19 pandemic had highlighted the vast inequality and a living wage was among measures being considered.
“I think there is a clear message emanating from Covid that it has exposed the duality of the Irish economy in terms of low-paid workers and yet the sectors that were key to us all from March onwards were retail and so forth,” he said.
“Now some employers have been good, I have to say, in terms of the practices that they’ve deployed in respect of their workforce. And I do think we need to look at that and the Government will be looking at the whole area of a living wage, that’s something we’ve got to do, not just a minimum wage but a living wage, which would really deal to some degree with that issue.
“And also, better conditions for workers and we’ll have to constantly look at that, we have dealt with this in some shape already in terms of the contract hours and in terms of security of tenure for employees.
“All of that has to be examined and is being examined, with a view to underpinning security income for lower paid workers, even the current public service pay agreement is weighted towards lower income workers in the public service. And I think that will be a theme of the Government in terms of that issue.”
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