The minimum wage should rise by 4 per hour to 15.30 per hour over the next two years to help the country’s most poorly paid workers cope with rising prices, the head of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has said.
In a submission to the Low Pay Commission, the trade union umbrella group said a significant increase in the minimum wage would also keep the Government on track to meet future EU obligations on a basic standard of living.
“Low-paid workers on the national minimum wage are hurting disproportionately in this cost-of-living crisis,” Ictu general secretary Owen Reidy said. “We welcome the fact that the Government is committed to moving to a national living wage but it needs to happen sooner.
“The national minimum wage should rise to 13.30 in January 2024 and then increase by another 2 in January 2025. Increases in 2021 and 2022 were well behind inflation, hence the need for a more meaningful increase now.
“We also believe that reductions to the minimum wage on age grounds are ill-judged and outdated. If you are old enough to work, you are old enough to earn the full minimum wage, and apprenticeships should no longer be excluded from the national minimum wage,” he said.
In its submission, responding to a request from the commission for proposals, Ictu argues that the recent increases to the existing minimum wage have not been sufficient to protect the roughly 165,000 people on it. That total, the organisations contends, contains a disproportionate number of...
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