asked the Minister for Finance whether he is aware that agricultural workers employed in the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park are receiving ten shillings per week less than the wages paid to forestry workers on that estate; and, if so, whether he will arrange that the agricultural workers are granted the same rate of wages as the forestry workers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Bourn Vincent Memorial Park.
Agricultural workers in the employment of the Commissioners of Public Works at the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park, whose wages were increased by 10/- a week as from the 7th April, 1951, are at present paid a rate of 68/4 a week, which exceeds the minimum rate prescribed by the Agricultural Wages Board for the area. It is not proposed to relate the wages of these workers to the rate paid to forestry workers employed by the Department of Lands. That rate is fixed on a different basis and is at present 74/- a week.
In view of the protest by the Minister for Agriculture that the majority of farmers are paying far in excess of the minimum laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board, surely the Parliamentary Secretary does not submit that 9d. a week above the minimum is a decent wage for the Department to be paying in the case of agricultural labourers employed at the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park?
There is something more than that in it, Deputy. The minimum agricultural wage paid at present is 67/6 for a 54-hour week. Workers in the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park, Killarney, work a 50-hour week in summer and a 45-hour week in winter.
And they get 9d. a week above the minimum for that.