Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the party’s TD for Dublin Bay North and Dublin candidate for the European elections, said the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive “provides us with a real opportunity to lift the 23 per cent of workers classified as being low-paid out of that trap”.

Ireland is currently “the only EU member state where workers do not have a right to be recognised for collective bargaining purposes”, he pointed out.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment told the Seanad select committee on EU scrutiny of draft EU-related statutory instruments in February that it did not believe primary legislation would be needed to transpose the directive.

Mr Ó Ríordáin said this reflected a “conservative attitude to EU legislation in terms of transposition” which led to Ireland being “currently ranked as one of the worst for incorrectly transposing EU legislation”.

“In order to implement the intent of the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive, we believe the employer veto over sectoral wage bargaining mechanisms needs to end and we want to end all obstacles to workers accessing unions,” he continued.

“In order for workers to easily and freely access unions, we need to ensure that the chill effect of egregious employer behaviour is removed.

“Significant reform of the Unfair Dismissal Act is needed to send a message that worker victimisation and union busting activity will not be tolerated. Finally, we believe that public procurement is a crucial incentive to rewarding the many good employers out there.”