The upcoming budget must prioritise raising wages and introduce targeted measures to lift households out of energy poverty and safeguard workers’ incomes and jobs, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has said.
Ictu has called on the Government to “immediately” introduce a “very significant” rise in the current minimum wage rate ahead of Budget day on September 27th.
Congress general secretary Patricia King said decent wages for all workers were central to resolving the cost of living crisis and that Ireland remains a “low-pay, high-cost country for too many”.
Ms King said average weekly wages, up 2.4 per cent in the year to June, were rising by just one quarter of the rate of inflation, which was 9.1 per cent over the same period.
In its pre-budget submission, published on Thursday, Congress called for the minimum wage to be raised to the living wage rate of €12.90, a reduction in early years, health transport and education costs, social welfare rates to be increased as well as a cap on electricity prices for low income households.
It has also recommended targeted employment supports and removing barriers to employment for lone parents, low and medium skilled, people with disabilities and women.
Ictu said there should be increased investment in the construction of A-rated public housing, “to be rented on cost-rental principles and held in public ownership”.
It has called for the introduction of a 0.6 per cent net wealth tax on households with net assets worth more than €1 million as well as raising “significantly greater revenue” from inherited wealth.
It said the Government should abolish the Help to Buy scheme and consider introducing a site value tax, alongside the existing local property tax.
Ms King said the State was clearly in the midst of a worsening energy costs crisis, “one that risks plunging hundreds of thousands of more households into energy poverty and threatens the livelihoods and jobs of tens of thousands of workers”.
“We should not underestimate the seriousness of this developing situation and policy choices should reflect that,” she said. “Already 43 per cent of Irish households may be energy poor in 2022, spending at least 10 per cent of their disposable income on heat and electricity, according to the ESRI.
“Energy costs have shot up by 40 per cent in the year to August. All indications are that energy costs will continue to increase and many more households will fall into energy poverty.”
Ms King said the energy price rises were against the backdrop of Irish households paying higher fees and charges than their European counterparts for early years services, health, education, transport, “alongside a dysfunctional housing system with exorbitant purchase and rental costs”.
