Protest against minimum wage cuts at the Dáil

A small but vocal crowd of protestors gathered outside the Dáil yesterday to both protest against a cut to the minimum wage and to present a petition against the same cut to TDs. Representatives of all the opposition parties were present at the protest.

Minimum wage worker Miranda Egan Stanley addressed the assembled crowd, saying, ‘As a minimum wage worker, I already struggle as it is and I don’t know how I’m expected to survive if my minimum wage is cut by one euro. If this proposal goes through we will not be able to survive and will be forced to get assistance from the social welfare. We hope that members of the Opposition here today will ensure that this does not happen.’

Willie Penrose accepted the petition on behalf of the Labour party and said, ‘This is an important event in the context of a bill that’s being rushed through in the next few hours. We all know that the loss for minimum wage workers will be €40 a week, but as the Labour party leader said this morning in the Dáil they are also now going to be subject to the universal Social Contribution, therefore they will now lose up to €48 a week. It’s an absolute shame.

It will be resisted, we will use every fibre of our being to resist this proposal. It will certainly not be implemented under any government that the Labour party forms.’

Richard Bruton of Fine Gael said: ‘Fine Gael does not support the cut in the minimum wage. We believe that if we’re to get out of the problems that we face in this country one of the essential ingredients is a sense of fairness.’

Siobhán O’Donoghue told the crowd: ‘It’s very very important to remember that the attempt to cut the minimum wage is just the first step towards trying to bring down all wages for low-paid workers and we have to take a stand to prevent that race to the bottom.’

Representing Sinn Féin, Aengus Ó Snodaigh addressed his fellow politicians, saying, ‘Sinn Féin will be calling on all members in that institution in there [the Dáil] to come out and give a pledge that if they have power they will reverse what has been attempted here today. It is only by their actions that they will be judged. There is no point in coming out here and saying you’re against [a cut in the minimum wage] if you’re going to go into government and implement it.’

Last to speak, John Douglas of Claiming Our Future excoriated the government for ‘the most devastating and unfair measure against low-paid and vulnerable workers that any government has ever tried to implement.’

He went on: ‘It will force hundreds of thousands of workers into poverty. It will make them have to make real decisions about whether they can afford, bread or milk, or pay their rent, pay their ESB bills. It will force life-changing decisions on low-paid workers.’

Video below.