Sinn Féin spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Louise O’Reilly TD, said new research from the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budget Office reinforces the need for the government to do more for workers by delivering a living wage and a right to collective bargaining through trade unions.

Teachta O’Reilly said:

“New economic research from the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budget Office, published in their ‘Spring Commentary 2024’, which shows that those in employment are seeing only negligible increases in their real incomes reinforces the need for government to do more for workers by delivering a living wage and a right to collective bargaining through trade unions.

“The research shows that workers’ real wages will only increase by 1.8 percent for 2023/2024. This negligible increase comes on the back of years of falling living standards and declining real wages for workers as evidenced by separate Oireachtas PBO on real incomes.

“That data shows that workers’ real wages declined in 2022 and 2023, and that despite any increase in workers’ wages in 2024, they will still be worse off than they were in 2020.

“In the midst of this, the government have been kite-flying about pausing the move towards a living wage and have refused to publish an action plan to increase collective bargaining coverage across the workforce to 80 percent as mandated under the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages.

“All the while we have witnessed a race to the bottom in terms and conditions of work, an increase in low paid work and the marginalisation of trade unions and workplace democracy, and we have a situation where workers are worse off now than when this government came to power – that cannot and should not be tolerated.

“The government must state publicly that delivery of a living wage will continue uninterrupted and that they will make immediate moves to deliver a right to organise for trade unions and collective bargaining.

“For far too long, workers and their rights have been an add-on or an afterthought.

“Sinn Féin believes that it is time for workers and workers’ rights to be front and centre of the political agenda.”