It will be another six to nine months before a Government review is completed on whether to scrap sub-minimum rates of pay for young workers.

In June, the Low Pay Commission recommended the abolition of the sub-minimum rates and the Department of Enterprise said at the time it would commission an economic impact assessment on the issue.

Today, officials from the Department appeared before the Oireachtas Enterprise Committee and said that work on the assessment began in recent days and would take six to nine months to complete.

A bill that seeks to abolish age based sub-minimum pay rates for younger workers was discussed this morning by the Committee.

Current legislation allows for lower, or sub-minimum rates for people aged under 20.

The minimum wage for those aged 19 is 90% of the prevailing rate, for those aged 18 it is 80% and for those aged 17 and under it is 70%.

Trade unions have called for the scrapping of sub-minimum wage rates, arguing that they are discriminatory against younger workers.

Business groups, however, have pointed out that in the retail and hospitality sector there are restrictions on younger people in terms of the types of products they can sell and the hours they can work.

It has been claimed that employers would be less inclined to hire young people at the same rate as adults if they have less experience, can not work the same hours or perform the same functions.

At today's hearing, Diarmaid Smyth, Principal Officer at the Department of...

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