Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Lansdowne Road agreement is a continuation of the Haddington Road agreement and is to dovetail into it. I am not walking away from the Haddington Road agreement at all. I am asking unions, having engaged with those in the public sector, to extend some of that agreement's provisions and begin the dismantling of the FEMPI legislation in an orderly way. The majority of trade unions in the public sector voted on and accepted this. Trade union negotiations are not à la carte. The notion that one can opt in and opt out as it suits and agree to the benefits but not the impositions placed by a collective agreement is not how those agreements work.

Deputy Healy is a gas man in many ways. He talks about the corporate state. This is a negotiated position accepted by ICTU. If Deputy Healy-----