Matthew Merrigan (1922 – 15 June 2000) was an Irish socialist and trade unionist from Dublin, known for his catchphrase "Profits are wages that have not been distributed yet."

In 1942 he came into contact with Jim McClean and Bob Armstrong, members of the Belfast section of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

[1] He was expelled from Labour during the 1957 Irish general election for supporting independent candidate Noel Browne, but was re-admitted in 1964.

Between 1960 and 1986 he was ATGWU district secretary for the Republic of Ireland, and in that role he provided militant leadership, retaining popularity with his union's membership despite frequent conflict with moderate trade-union leaders.

[1] He was a member of Labour's administrative council but Merrigan resigned in 1970 when the body failed to expel Stephen Coughlan, TD for Limerick East, over anti-semitic remarks.

Merrigan hated the idea of Labour going into coalition with the two main parties in Ireland, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, calling them unison of "irreconcilable class and social forces".

He lambasted leaders in the Labour party in favour of coalitions as ‘wretched middle-class careerists’ eager for ‘a place in capitalism's squalor’.

Merrigan was critical of the corporatist tendency of Irish industrial relations in contrast to the less malleable and more socialist ethos of British trade-unionism.

He also felt that that successive Irish government favoured and supported Irish-only trade unions rather than amalgamated British-Irish ones in order to limit their power and effectiveness.

He criticised US policy on Cuba, Vietnam, and Central America, and also opposed repressive aspects of the communist systems of the USSR and Eastern Europe.

His wife Rose had died some years before, but he was survived by their daughter and two sons — the elder of whom, also called Matt, is an official of the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU).