National Minimum Wage (Inclusion of Young Persons, Apprentices and Interns) Bill 2025: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I am very happy to support the Bill introduced by Senators Cosgrove and Harmon and other Senators from the cross-party group. It is incredibly disappointing to see it is not being supported across the House. That sends a deeply disappointing message to young people and young workers in Ireland. I am interested in higher education. When there is wage inequality and a systematic measure that allows for the cutting of costs, those measures are used and exploited. We hear a lot about business costs. To be clear, we are asking young workers, namely those aged between 17 and 19, to supplement the profits of a business by working at a lesser rate. The costs do not disappear. Rather, they are being put on to younger workers who are giving of their time, which is as precious as anybody else's time, and face the same costs. In many cases, they are paying for food and rent. They do not pay lower rent. Those who are paying towards family rent do not pay less because they are aged 18. In some cases, people under the age of 21 are managing a household on their own or have dependents. The cost of living does not go down. By definition, we are discussing a minimum wage rather than a living wage. If the Bill goes to Committee Stage I might signal another issue on which I have tabled a Bill. We already have a problem with the minimum wage directive legislation in that it does not consider adequacy. The factors taken into account when considering and deciding on the minimum wage each year include the impact on the economy and businesses. A whole raft of factors go into determining that there is a wage that can be borne by business and the economy. Currently, those calculations do not include the extent to which that wage is an adequate wage that people can live on. The word "adequacy" is missing in the legislation. That is a separate day's discussion. We have a process whereby we determine that there is a minimum wage and say that is what everybody can expect to earn. Business groups are represented at the Low Pay Commission where that is determined. They get to have a say in the discussion. In fact, the Low Pay Commission, which includes representatives from all sectors, including businesses, unions, academic experts and others, not just anecdotal stories from people in individual businesses, has twice recommended that subinimum rates be removed. It made that recommendation in 2024 and called for urgent action. It recommended it again in July 2025. The commission includes experts from across every sector. Not all come from a union perspective; far from it. I think unions are under-represented on the body. The commission, along with the ESRI which has also examined this, has said the evidence does not add up and there is no case for subminimum rates and, in fact, there is a case against that rate. All of the experts, including the Government body, have set the minimum wage. However, let us be clear. There is an attitude that organisations feel they can get away with paying younger people less. If businesses can get away with paying younger workers less, the great thing is that they cut their costs a little bit and can perhaps keep hiring younger people. The idea that younger people are being paid low rates because they are being brought up to wonderful jobs is incorrect. If businesses are letting the bottom line set policy – bad policy in this case – that bottom line will continue firing 21-year-olds and hiring another 19-year-old. That does not happen in every instance, but it happens in certain industries. Some of the industries we have heard about during this debate have poor practices in terms of retaining workers and giving them a proper period of time and ladders to build up experience. Businesses paying some workers a lower rate is bad for all workers. It undercuts all workers and damages entry level for everybody. It minimises the opportunities for a 24-year-old who wants to go into a new sector, compared with an 18-year-old. It puts them at a disadvantage in entering a new field. It is an anomaly in the system and a problem that needs to be addressed. The Bill does that. This is a problem for society. There are clear exemptions. In the case of genuine training or educational programmes, the Bill allows for internships in those circumstances that may not be remunerated. If we are simply asking people to work for free or cheap in an industry without any education or training context, we are saying that only certain people will get onto that rung on the ladder, namely those who can afford to do it for little or nothing. It will be disadvantageous in terms of the variety and diversity we need in every sector if we make rungs of the ladder of progress unavailable to many in society. I support the Bill and recommend and commend it to the House. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-17