National Minimum Wage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
============================================================

Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

The number of people has increased, but it is still well short of what we need because, as we know, we have a housing emergency, we have water infrastructure that we have to develop and we have shortages in a whole number of areas, including a shortage of chefs. We have to make it more attractive. The further education committee is producing a report next week which goes into many aspects of this. I repeat that the wage for the first year is €7.67 per hour and for the second year is €11.50 per hour. If the average age of people going into apprenticeships is 21 to 22, it is just not a runner. I cannot say it is not a runner because some people do it, but it is tough going. If the Minister is talking about inclusion and the barriers that exist for women, people with disabilities and different groups, this is a serious barrier and we need to do something about it. Part of the reason I am in favour of a State construction company is so we can take on more apprentices on better rates and make it more attractive to be an apprentice. At a minimum, we need to raise those first-year and second-year rates to minimum-wage rates.

---

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/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19