If you are on the minimum wage and don't have enough money then do some overtime or get a second job. The idea that people should be paid more because their outgoings are too high is ridiculous.
The Des bishop programme was a load of rubbish as it ignored that fact that only 3% of our population are on the minimum wage and most of them live with their mother.
I love the idea that you think that people on the minimum wage have a) the option of overtime available to them or b) have the time for a second job. Many minumum wage jobs have no facility to offer overtime, you do the hours you are set and that's that. If people have children and are working for a minimum wage, chances are they cannot afford extra childcare costs while they go work their second job in the evenings or weekends.
As for only 3% of the population being on min. wage I find that hard to believe.
I would know quite a lot of people who are on minimum wage or just slightly above it (I'm around the 30 years of age mark, so I'm not talking about young inexperienced adults fresh out of the leaving cert or college), and have mortgages/children/cars like most of the rest of the adult population, and have to somehow get by on minimum wage.
Many of them also have good educations with degrees etc., but are unable to find work that pays well above the minimum wage.
I personally think that this is due to the location we live in (and it's not a rural backwater, but a large enough city), as there are so many people looking for jobs, employers know they will find someone willing to take the work on for a minimum wage in return, and they don't need to offer big salaries in order to fill the position, nor do they need to give payraises to keep members of staff, they tend to prefer to let them move on, and hire new staff who will work for the lower wages. This is just personal surmising, BTW, from what I see on a daily basis.
I will say I have had experience of going for jobs where the requirements are a 3rd level honours degree and 5 yrs working experience, only to be told that pay is circa 17k per annum for a fulltime position of 39/40 hours work a week. Talk about putting decent candidates right off. Where is the incentive for bettering yourself when after 4 years of putting yourself through college, plus time spent learning the ropes in that field of employment, you still end up at the lower or bottom of the payscale?
The only option for many people I know to earn more would be to uproot and move lock stock and barrell out of the country, or to a different city within Ireland, but of course many can't do this due to family ties etc.
I personally have been lucky enough to manage to work my way into roles that pay enough to keep a roof over our head and the bills paid, and have only spent some time in minimum wage jobs immediately after college, but I have not yet broken the 30k barrier, and in fact found myself right back at the start again last year after the company I was working for got taken over and some of us were made redundant during the restructuring process, and it's not for lack of trying to advance myself in the workplace - I have an advanced diploma and degree, plus years of experience. Imagine what it must be like for someone with only the Leaving Cert or even less to their name, trying to advance in terms of wages.
It's also a vicious circle, you find yourself in a minimum wage job, therefore you are only just keeping afloat, so you cannot spare the money to save to return to college to retrain, so you end up stuck in your minimum wage role trying to meet daily expenses.
The only reason I'm posting this is to point out that many people who are on minimum wage are not uneducated slobs living off their parents, incapable of trying to better their lot, in fact many I know have degrees, or are returning to college in their 30s or doing distance learning courses, and find themselves stuck on low wages years into their working life, especially now with the economic indicators pointing to a turndown as many are clinging onto their jobs for dear life.