A national minimum wage will cost 14,000 jobs, deter employers from creating a further 15,000 jobs and encourage young people to leave school early, the Small Firms' Association warned yesterday.

Speaking at a conference on employment law in Cork yesterday, Mr Kieran Crowley, chairman of the Small Firms' Association, told delegates minimum wage legislation, which is due to come into force in four weeks' time, was bad for Ireland, bad for business and bad for the people it purported to help.

He said people in low-paid, low-skilled jobs would see the number of hours available to them for work reduced and 14,000 of them would lose their jobs. He said the minimum wage would add 2 per cent to the national pay bill without any increase in output and would encourage young people to leave school.