Living Wage Deferred to 2029 Under Action Plan on Competitiveness and Productivity

The Programme for Government mandated the development of an Action Plan on Competitiveness and Productivity, intended to cover areas critical to Ireland’s economic performance including industrial policy, regulatory burden reduction, infrastructure, energy, trade, and innovation.

As part of this mandate, the Government has announced its decision to expedite the action plan, and the approval of certain high-level short-term measures to address business costs including:

• A revised timeline for the Living Wage which has been put pack to 2029.
• Deferral of decisions on youth sub-minimum wage rates, and
• Further changes to statutory sick pay paused.

Separately, Minister Jack Chambers has signalled that the launch of the auto-enrolment pension scheme will not proceed in September as scheduled. Further details on the revised launch date for the new pension system are awaited.