Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2023-03-07
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I echo what Deputy O'Reilly said. Trans rights are human rights. Trans people have every bit as much a right to be recognised in every level of our education system as anybody else.
I wish to ask the Taoiseach about the PhD workers and postgraduate workers who are planning a protest in the next week or two outside Leinster House. They point out that the highest stipend for PhD students is €18,500. For many, it is much less. Even the highest level equates to about €8.80 per hour, which is less than the minimum wage. There are many tens of thousands of these postgraduate workers. In the EU, the average PhD pay is €32,000, multiples of the highest level here. In Nordic countries, it is €50,000 and the vast majority of those involved have proper contracts of employment. There is a review going on, but they are asking very simply that there should be a living postgraduate worker salary of at least €25,000. Will the Taoiseach agree to that? Will he announce it in advance of the budget?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-03-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-03-07