Figures on wages in Ireland from the Central Statistics Office – show that Irish employees in medium and large firms earned 57% more than workers from the EU accession states. Also- Irish workers in small firms earned 36% more than employees from EU accession states.In small businesses in Ireland in 2006 – the average wage for Irish workers was €15.44 per hour. This compares with just €11.34 per hour for workers from the EU accession states. However, workers from the UK and other EU-15 stories earned more than Irish employees, taking in €16.16 and €16.25 per hour respectively.
Average hourly earnings were highest for Irish employees in medium and large enterprises with 50 or more employees at €19.96. Employees from the UK earned on average €19.41 per hour – the highest paid non-Irish employees.
The lowest paid were those from the EU accession states, who earned, on average, €11.43 per hour, which was 57% of the average hourly rate earned by Irish employees.
The figures also show that there has been an increase of 129% of non-Irish nationals at work in the state, from the second quarter of 2003 to the second quarter of 2007 to 316,300.