Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank and commend ICTU on its presentation and for its work on just transition. What is really notable is the thinking is in that big picture. It is about recognising that this is not a piecemeal set of consequences that happen sector by sector. If we are recognising the massive transition involved in climate action, we need to be planning and reworking our employment, educational and other systems. We can look at our labour relations mechanisms and the role the WRC might play, not just in terms of this transition and this issue, but in terms of how the role of the WRC could provide a model for similar fora in terms of what will be multiple cases of transition. On the idea of centres of excellence, I just want to commend - I know it is not the key subject here - the work on the four-day week, which is recognising that work as we know it is part of just transition and looking at how climate intersects with decent work. Again, that is the big picture thinking.

I am very struck by the small, piecemeal amount of funding that we have going to the immediate crisis in the midlands versus the key area which is the globalisation fund, a discussion at European level where Ireland is not simply a passive actor. Ireland can be a champion for a reframing of the globalisation fund at European level, but also the witnesses might comment on whether at the moment it is only the increase in carbon tax that is ring-fenced in terms of transition and just transition. If the entire amount were ring-fenced, we would be looking at something closer to €500 million and closer to the kind of budget that had been allocated, for example, to transition on Brexit, rather than €90 million. If one looks at something over €500 million, one is looking at being able to front-load a complete rethink of how we prepare society and the workplace for transition. That is a general comment and I would appreciate any comment on that.

What I wanted to drill into particularly was the issue of the individual versus the collective. Over a year ago, I was sitting on the committee on employment and social protection and talking to the Minister, Deputy Doherty, at that time about the many sectors where we can see it is coming down the line. Perhaps we did not know the scale of it in Bord na Móna, but we knew it was coming down the line in many sectors and that these areas and sectors were about to change, and if supports be offered to workers while they were still in work. The key issue is we are told that these supports are going to be there, but it seems these supports will be there after one gets a P45 potentially. The answer at the time was very dissatisfactory in that we wait for them to be unemployed and then we will give them supports, but at that point of course it is an individual, and it is an individual who may get education, may get training, may or may not get a job out of that training, versus the kind of collective solutions. That issue of redeployment which has been touched on here I think is key. The witnesses might tease out a little what redeployment might mean in these contexts versus simply retraining after redundancy or indeed new jobs that may be lesser quality jobs, as we have heard very clearly in terms of the contracts that are there. This is so that when we are quizzing Bord na Móna and ESB, we can be clear on where redeployment should be fitting into it.

Then in regard to that, some of the areas where we are told workers may end up working is in retrofitting or in bog rehabilitation. How important is it that that routeway is planned collectively for sets of workers who are currently employed in Bord na Móna or indeed in ESB down the line, rather than simply that a person may get a skills course and then may get employed by a company that may bid for some retrofitting? There is potential for public service projects such as the rewetting of bogs or retrofitting specifically of local authority housing stock, which has been talked about. We have heard that Bord na Móna has had a poor record in competitive tendering. What routes could we have basically to look for redeployment pathways? I am looking to how we build on that to ensure as far as possible that we are giving an actual collective route and keeping workers possibly at least in the medium term in a collective employment situation and in a collective rights situation.