The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has called for the national minimum wage to be increased in January 2024 by €2, making the hourly rate €13.30.

In a submission to the Low Pay Commission, ICTU said such an increase would go a considerable distance to providing a decent standard of living for low paid workers. ICTU is also calling for the minimum wage to increase by another €2 in January 2025.

"Low paid workers on the national minimum wage are hurting disproportionately in this cost-of-living crisis. Increases to the NMW in 2021 and 2022 were well behind inflation hence the need for a more meaningful increase now.

We have a tight labour market and work must pay, particularly for the most vulnerable in this cost-of-living crisis,” said ICTU General Secretary Owen Reidy.

Last year, a new national living wage was agreed, to replace the minimum wage by 2026. The new living wage will be phased in over a four-year period and commenced in January 2023. It will be set at 60% of the hourly median wage.

Under the agreement the Low Pay Commission will have discretion to use adjustment mechanisms to speed up or slow down progress towards 60% of the hourly median wage in response to any specific circumstances that have had a significant impact on economic conditions.

Once the living wage comes into effect in 2026, subject to an assessment of the impact of the change, the Low Pay Commission will advise on the practicalities of gradually increasing the targeted threshold rate towards 66% of the hourly median wage.

While the new living wage scheme has been broadly welcomed, workers under the age of 18 are still only guaranteed up to 70% of the national minimum wage. Mr Reidy said that the reductions to the minimum wage on age grounds were “ill-judged and outdated” and called on the living wage to be fast tracked.

“It is wrong that we pay adults a percentage of the national minimum wage. If you are old enough to work you are old enough to earn the full minimum wage and apprenticeships should no longer be excluded from the national minimum wage,” he said.

Mr Reidy said that young workers had been let down by society and our economy.

“They are in many instances in precarious low-paid work and are all but excluded from the housing and rental market given the immense housing crisis we are living through. Getting to the real living wage as envisaged by the recently agreed Adequate Minimum Wages Directive by 2025 is the minimum low paid and younger workers should expect,” he said.

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