Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The unions' members are under attack from Bus Éireann. The Minister and the Government stand idly by but, by doing so, they aid and abet the attack. From what I have seen in Leinster House over the past two days, we are dealing with a Government which is considerably weaker than it was last week. It is my personal hope that the weakened position of the Government will assist the unions' members in achieving justice and stopping these wage cuts. The unions are now in a stronger position.

The longer this matter goes on and the longer I listen to Mr. Ray Hernan, the acting chief executive, I think there is another issue on the agenda. When I am finished here, I am going around the corner to Baggot Street to talk to the strikers outside the Tesco store there. There is a blatant and obvious attempt at union-busting by Tesco. It is an upfront attempt at union-busting in the sense that union officials have been kept off the premises, no union literature is allowed on store notice boards. I noted this morning in Bray that Tesco stopped union deductions from the payslips and so forth.

It is not as blatant as that in Bus Éireann. In reality, if a company has unions accept €7,000 pay cuts, it has the unions in its pocket and, effectively, it has busted the unions. There is a private sector example and another example with Bus Éireann. It is two sides of the one coin.

I noted Mr. Dermot O'Leary's point on shared depots. Some depots are used by Bus Éireann workers and buses and by Irish Rail workers. I presume the import of what Mr. Dermot O'Leary said is that if there are pickets outside these depots next Monday, then there will be an issue for rail workers crossing a picket line. Will he expand on that? Some of the depots were mentioned. I would like to hear which ones they are because that is a significant issue for the dispute.

I am also aware from my contacts and connections with public transport workers in Cork that while workers in Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus are in separate companies to Bus Éireann, there is an element of a band of brothers to it. They were all CIE workers at one stage and everybody knows that if one goes down, then the rest are liable to be next. There is a sense of shared interests. I understand the unions may not want to comment on this because there are talks this afternoon. Is there a degree of pressure on the unions from Dublin Bus and Iarnród Éireann workers to say they do not want the Bus Éireann workers to stand alone?

Are the witnesses under a degree of pressure from below? Would they care to comment on that?