# "Don't increase minimum wage and allow non-EU citizens work in restaurants"



## Brendan Burgess (3 Jun 2016)

I heard some guy on Morning Ireland yesterday arguing that the restaurant trade can't get staff and find the minimum wage hard to pay at present, without it being increased any further. 

The solution was to lift the restrictions on working visas. 

It seems to me that the very high social welfare rates and benefits are at the root of the problem. It doesn't pay people to work when they can get almost as much on social welfare.  If social welfare rates were brought down to the average levels in other European countries, people would be prepared to work. 

I spent a week in Spain recently and was surprised that the waiting staff were of all ages and seemed to me to be Spanish.   In Ireland, it seems that most of the waiting staff are young and foreign.  Why do so few  Irish people work as waiters?


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## odyssey06 (3 Jun 2016)

I think the issue here is all or nothing means tested poverty traps. Here you work, you start losing benefits.
Your earned income should be just a topup on the benefits so waiting, even if the pay seems low, can be a career.
The system needs to be constructed such that there needs to be an incentive to work and a disincentive to not... That is not the case here.

Our welfare rates are too high, if we weren't in the EU I think the 'basic income' approach would be the way to go which is being discussed here:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/tim-hartford-on-basic-income-and-other-suggestions.193700/

If you can work i.e. not eligible for disability, then you shouldn't get a medical card unless you are working.


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## Purple (3 Jun 2016)

Rates of long term social welfare are the same as short term rates. The Uk and Ireland are almost unique in Europe for having that and it's a major part of the problem.


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## thedaddyman (3 Jun 2016)

A very Dublin centric view point. As someone who lives in a country town I'm seeing more and more Irish people working in restaurants and less and less foreigners. I actually can't remember the last time a non-national served me.


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## Protocol (3 Jun 2016)

May 2016 = 170,000 unemployed as per QNHS

May 2016 = 310,000 on the Live Register

May 2016 = 20m people unemployed across the EU.


Given such a large pool of unemployed labour to draw from, why would we need to import non-EU workers?


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## Brendan Burgess (3 Jun 2016)

thedaddyman said:


> A very Dublin centric view point.



Hi Protocol

That is very interesting. 

I wonder why it would be that different. Was it always that way or has it changed recently? 

It was put to the guy on the radio that restaurants were booming again, and he replied that they may be doing well in Dublin, but that they were suffering around the country.

Brendan


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## thedaddyman (3 Jun 2016)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Protocol
> 
> That is very interesting.
> 
> ...



Good restaurants, coffee shops and pubs with food are ticking along ok in busy country towns. If there is a new outlet opening in a street (at least where I live) there is a good chance it is a food outlet of some sort. Costs (rents and rates)  are much lower which helps but so does far more reasonable pricing. I think people like the idea of local ingrediants as well.


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## Brendan Burgess (3 Jun 2016)

It's also possible that the wages paid in a rural area are enough to pay for accommodation. 

In Dublin, it probably doesn't pay to work if one gets social welfare and one's rent paid. 

Brendan


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## Deiseblue (4 Jun 2016)

I am making a presumption here by suggesting that a sizeable proportion of restaurant staff are single & aged under 25 .

Unemployed single people aged under 25 are paid jobseekers allowance of €100 per week & if sharing accommodation are entitled to a rent allowance .

To suggest that one's rent is paid is incorrect - in Dublin the maximum monthly allowance for a single person in shared accommodation is €350 whereas in Waterford it's €220.

In either the case of either Waterford or Dublin it would appear extremely unlikely that anyone aged under 25 could afford to rent on a combination of social welfare & rental allowance as their monthly income from those sources would total €783 in Dublin & €653 in Waterford , all this , of course , does not include living expenses !

I really don't see how the solution is the lifting of restrictions on working visas if the problem is paying the minimum wage  - surely the minimum wage is payable to every employee no matter what their status ?


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## Gerry Canning (4 Jun 2016)

{If social welfare rates were brought down to average European levels people would be prepared to work }

I dislike that reasoning .
I dislike the notion that make something low enough you force people into poor work and allow bad employers abuse people.
Surely we have over decades seen what happens when you force things down.
I readily accept there is a cohort of malingerers who won,t work but I fail to see how this suggestion has any real substance or validity, when its teased out..


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## Brendan Burgess (4 Jun 2016)

Gerry Canning said:


> I dislike the notion that make something low enough you force people into poor work and allow bad employers abuse people.



Hi Gerry

It's actually the other way around.  We are paying extremely high social welfare rates compared to the rest of Europe.  

In most other countries people are better off working and so they choose to work.  In Ireland, a lot of people are better off on social welfare than working. As a result, it's hard for Irish employers to find Irish employees. 

Brendan


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## odyssey06 (4 Jun 2016)

Gerry Canning said:


> Surely we have over decades seen what happens when you force things down.



Except we really haven't in Ireland. When was the last time Ireland's welfare levels were below EU average? Or even average?
What we're seeing here is what happens when we have means tested poverty traps, and we have perfectly capable people paid to do nothing.
In the long run, someone stuck in that position will be in it forever, and will be dependent on the state and reliant on every future government to maintain them in that poverty trap. I wouldn't want to make that bet.
If they start work, even if the job right now only matches that position, they have possibilities in the future to gain new skills, promotions etc

There is another angle to this issue. If these people were working and in exactly the same financial position as before, we'd be paying out less welfare, on the order of 50-100%, the state would have more money to spend on health service, gardai, education etc
We simply cannot afford the welfare system we have right now, something has to give. It's a disgrace that the talents and efforts of these people are going to waste like this.
Now maybe they themselves won't become nurses, teachers or guards, but they can sure as hell pay for one.


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## Delboy (4 Jun 2016)

Welfare traps like this?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...-rejecting-house-offered-by-council-1.2672122


> With Doyle in the room are his wife [broken link removed] and their youngest child, John Paul jnr (2). The couple have five other children: Michael (17) who is now living with his girlfriend; Jordanna (14) who has a heart murmur; Frances (10); Winnie (7); and Mary (6)....
> ....In the back garden, two lurchers, Elas and Toby, lounge about, while a yappy poodle also announces its presence.....
> ...Doyle is 36, while Frances is 37. They have been together since they were 18, having met at a Halloween party in Longford.
> *Doyle is an intelligent, articulate and able-bodied man, but he has never had a job,* something he attributes to his illiteracy.
> ...



Is that €490 a week for him and the wife, all in? Or is Children's allowance paid on top of that for all the 6 kids (incl the 17yo now living with his girlfriend!!!)? How much per annum for this family excluding free housing? Are we talking €3k per month here into the hand and essentially free housing also...excluding the value of medical cards for all etc?
A big physical specimen of a man from the picture- he's not sitting around watching TV all day. Only in his mid 30's with that many kids and yet has never had a job that he's paid tax to the state on.
He's effectively being housed for next to nothing of a contribution from his side. But it appears beggars can be choosers.
And the irony of who is running the garage beside the 'kip hole'...an immigrant who has probably worked from the first day he arrived here 11 years ago.

This is the broken system we have and that no one is prepared to tackle. The Politicians either run scared or say we need to give them more free stuff. There's a whole Charity racket employing tens of thousands (many of them on very generous salaries) also looking for the working man/woman to pay more to support lifestyles like this.

And Business is short of workers...go figure!
The solution - import youngsters from poor countries to work minimum wage and share bedrooms in squats around Dublin (compared to the 'kip hole' in Longford!) and not rock the boat with the permanent army of unemployed/disability recipients. Of course the added bonus for the Charity industry with this solution is that it helps support more quangos...Immigrant Council of Ireland, Migrant Rights Centre Ireland etc etc.

The working man/woman is a sucker....rant over!


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## LS400 (6 Jun 2016)

These posts have reminded me of the time I advertised a job paying the going rate for a skilled tradesman, 
I offered it to a guy who was delighted as he hadn't worked in 6 months, he said he was going to the S/W to sign off. 

Later that day, a person from the S/W called me to say Mr X was with her and would I pay him €50 more per week!! and if not, she would have to recommend that he stays on benefits as he would have a better standard of living!!

 I bumped into him years later, still on benefits.


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## Brendan Burgess (6 Jun 2016)

LS400 said:


> Later that day, a person from the S/W called me to say Mr X was with her and would I pay him €50 more per week!! and if not, she would have to recommend that he stays on benefits as he would have a better standard of living!!



That is a very odd story.  It certainly would not be the policy of the Dept of Social Welfare to do this. So was it a lone ranger in your area? What part of the country was it? Would the SW Officer have been a friend of the guy? 

Brendan


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## LS400 (6 Jun 2016)

My biggest regret to this day is that I didn't take it further.

It was very official, the person was quite matter of fact about what entitlements he would loose unless his pay was above the going rate.
It was 100% the S/W office in Clondalkin.
The guy was a non national, not that that has anything to do with it, it was no Spoofe. 

Last week, my cleaner left after 2 months in the job, citing to her work colleagues,  that she was better off when she was on the dole. 
We don't under pay, we pay the going rate.
There are plenty of jobs out there, but it got to the stage, you would be a fool to to give up, Your benefits.

This is the real world folks.


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## Setanta12 (7 Jun 2016)

Isn't the social welfare rates for younger people approx EUR100, and for those older - almost double that at EUR188?


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## Gerry Canning (7 Jun 2016)

I really do not appreciate the tone of this thread .

It surely has been shown that the majority of SW recipients would much prefer gainful labour.
Yes we can all show issues were people abuse the welfare system , I contend they are few nuff.
On the fact we have better welfare rates than most of Europe = that is to be applauded.

Having had on occasion to rely on Welfare at times in my working life , there is NO way welfare rates give a good option + they is nought edifying about queuing to sign on and on !.

I tire of this type of thread .
Ask the vast vast majority of people would they take even a poor job over welfare and if you check = yes.
From memory surveys have shown that people often take poor work over welfare.is. 

And to be clear ; the chancers quoted on the threads should be hammered and the SW person in Clondalkin should be sacked !
I do note Odysseys issue on poverty traps, maybe we just need to be cuter on how we apply welfare.

Thread started on (don't increase minimum wage etc) , sounds a bit plausible but i don,t see minimum wage as a good measure of anything except that if it wasn,t in place ,staff would be thrown crumbs for wages.


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## mtk (7 Jun 2016)

My view :

I think the " boom " is back in minimum wage jobs- just look at all the adds in the windows in Dublin anyway but universities are off  now so aren't there many available students?
Restaurants too are reluctant to employ older workers- ageism ? bad for image?

Short term unemployment benefit is low (e.g. no salary related benefit - you get 2/3 of salary for a year in Germany).
Means tested benefits in general are a bad idea creating disincentives to work/save etc.


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## Purple (7 Jun 2016)

Gerry Canning said:


> i don,t see minimum wage as a good measure of anything except that if it wasn,t in place ,staff would be thrown crumbs for wages.


With respect Gerry that makes no sense at all. The rates of Social welfare set the floor below which people will not work. They also set the level at which the pay graph for the entire economy starts. Therefore given that someone gets €100 per week as an 20 year old they are not going to take a job which pays them less than that.

So, can you offer an opinion on the below statements;


Employers have to pay the market rate or else they won’t get people to work for them.
It isn’t 1890 and there aren’t great the swathes of proletariat queuing up to work in Dickensian Dark Satanic Mills.
There is a property owning middle class, something Marx never envisioned; He got it wrong and so the fundamental premise of Communism, and it’s little brother Socialism, is flawed.
There is no such thing as the “Employer Class”.
Everyone who derives their income from their labour is, by definition, working class so doctors, nurses, business managers, TD’s, solicitors and barristers, architects, engineers, plumbers, bin-men, street cleaners etc are all working class.
Everyone who works is a worker, including employers and managers.
A just society is one which strives for equality of opportunity.
A society which strives for equality of outcome (socialism) is fundamentally unjust.
It is damaging to society and to the individual for the state to do for people permanently things which they can and should do for themselves.


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## Gerry Canning (7 Jun 2016)

Purple,

I do not disagree with you.
My comments are ;
In most cases Employers  have a tough time because a culture of entitlement and over regulation has stymied too many of them .

,
"I think we need to move on from Dickens,socialism,communism etc.Too many discussions revolve around (brother) worker or the Big Bad employer , seems we are stuck in arcane and lazy language.
"Employer Class also went out with the large factory assembly type work , and I think we are the better for it.
"Don,t like the term (working Class) for any one ,
" We all are workers in the hive of society.
" I like the idea of equality of opportunity , if we could reboot society we could do it !
"Equality of outcome is not (socialism) its stupidity latched onto by those pretend socialists.
" I hate what I see as an entitlement culture , I have no issue helping the cradle people or the ancient ones, but damn it the rest of us MUST paddle our own canoe! 

I have the notion we are on the one Hymn sheet , just different notes !


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## LS400 (7 Jun 2016)

mtk said:


> My view :
> 
> 
> 
> Restaurants too are reluctant to employ older workers- ageism ? bad for image?



The irony of that is the fact most restaurants outside Ireland have an older workforce, where they have made a career out of waiting on tables and so-forth.


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## thedaddyman (7 Jun 2016)

mtk said:


> My view :
> 
> 
> Restaurants too are reluctant to employ older workers- ageism ? bad for image?



Again, a bit of a Dublin centric view. Down in culchie land where I live, many of the pub/restaurants and hotels have older staff working for them, many on part time hours that suit them. For the most part, these would be the type of places that have a very strong local trade and are long and well established businesses


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