Fine Gael is trying to re-furbish its image by presenting itself as a business friend. So it is taking up the call for subsidies to cover the costs of increases in the minimum wage.
However, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has come out strongly against a propaganda offensive by IBEC, the bosses’ organisation. These claim that modest measures designed to help workers will drive many out of business and create more unemployment.
It is nonsense. The minimum wage is a mere €12.70. But if you are aged 19, you are only entitled to €11.43. If you are 18, you only get €10.16.
Businesses have received a stream of government subsidies in the past. They got grants for commercial rates, low-cost loans and help to pay wages. They got loans and grants to adapt to Brexit.
These are the same businesses that often scream for low taxes and demand cuts in public spending.
Now they are claiming that they must ‘shoulder the burden’ of a high minimum wage.
However, as the ICTU points out, Irish firms already pay much less than their EU counterparts when it comes to employer PRSI (about half of what their counterparts pay as a portion of national income) and so are already effectively being subsidised by the rest of society.
And far from a surge in job losses, more people are employed than ever with 2.7 million in the workforce.