Cost of Board and Lodgings to Remain

The Low Pay Commission has recommended that deductions employers can take from pay for the cost of board and lodging remain at current rates. This is on top of a 30c increase in the minimum wage. SIPTU (Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union) welcomed the announcement.

The report recommends that employers should be allowed to deduct 82 cents for board and lodgings per hour and €21.85 or €3.14 per day for lodgings only.

SIPTU Services Division Organiser, Ethel Buckley, said: “The best way of dealing with the issue of board and lodgings is through negotiations at a Joint Labour Committee. Issues concerning board and lodgings should be a matter for social dialogue and collective bargaining by the representatives of employees and employers as they are in most other EU and OECD countries.

“Unfortunately, such a process in the hotel and catering industries in Ireland is being hampered by the refusal of employers in these sectors to engage in sectoral based collective bargaining on wages and conditions in accordance with stated government policy.

“It has been the long held position of SIPTU that it is completely unacceptable that while employers in these sectors continue to subvert Government policy they benefit from the preferential VAT rate which is applicable to the hospitality sector. This situation needs to end if the Government does not wish to be seen to be rewarding those who seek to exploit the low paid.”

The LPC also recommended that that the minimum wage increase by 30c, bring amount to €9.55 per hour. The Programming for government committees the Fine Gael lead minority government to increasing the minimum wage to €10.50.

Meanwhile, IBEC, the group that represents Irish business, announced it could not understand the recommended increase.