Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I had prepared for ten minutes but I will try to cut down what I was going to say.

I note that IBEC has three main planks to its submission: the removal of the quarantine restrictions, replacing the 2 m social distancing limit with a 1 m limit and an extensive and systemic Covid-19 tracking and tracing programme. I can only agree with IBEC on the last point but I want to compare its approach with a letter in The Irish Timestoday from over 1,000 scientists who say we can begin to suppress the virus, with the ambitious aim of suppressing it in total, "by continuing public health measures, including the use of masks, active fast contact tracing and testing, and sensible restrictions on travel". There is a comparison between IBEC and ISME's submissions and what the scientists are saying to us because it seems to me that both IBEC and ISME think we have to hurry up and get back to normal as soon as possible. The choice in their narrative is that either we have a deep recession and an economic shutdown or we do not crush the virus. We need to be very careful in the message we are sending out here. Do the witnesses have any further contribution to make on public health?

I do not see the obligations or duties of the members of IBEC and ISME to their employees mentioned in either of their submissions. Throughout this pandemic, everybody in this Chamber has been inundated with phone calls and emails from workers, including those who were forced to stay in work or had to stay in work, about breaches of their rights by their employers. Some workers had their rights and conditions of employment breached. Others were forced to take holidays or suffered unilateral pay cuts and changes in work practices. Many thousands of workers were let go in the middle of the pandemic and in many cases they had no access to trade union recognition. We have seen hundreds of employees of companies that are members of IBEC and ISME pushed into dangerous and unfair practices, but this is not mentioned in their submissions. I also mention the poor regulatory performance of the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, which was nowhere to be seen when these complaints were lodged.

I also note that both IBEC and ISME bitterly complain about the pandemic unemployment payment and about cases of low-paid workers doing better out of it than in their original employment. However, they failed to address the question of the wage subsidy scheme. Firms that posted profits of over €1 billion in recent years have been accessing State money and using the wage subsidy scheme to make sure their profits remain intact. Ironically, I note that the PUP will be spent in the local shops and small businesses that ISME claims to represent sooner than the employers will spend their largesse.

I agree with the witnesses on the need to reimagine Ireland after this pandemic. We need to reimagine it as an Ireland with decent public services and a one-tier health system that is properly resourced. We do not need reimagine it as an Ireland that is a floating tax haven but as an Ireland with proper regulations for businesses. How do IBEC and ISME feel we can recover from this pandemic by rushing back to economic activity while risking public health? Will IBEC and ISME comment on their obsession with public sector pay and pensions? These are the old straw men they have gone after for years, including in the last two recessions. Is it not the case that the problem is that private sector pay and pensions are so poor because private sector employers demand that these private pensions are gambled with on the stock exchange? Is it not the case that the private sector risks the pensions of its employees by playing foolish games with them? I ask the witnesses to comment on the point that we need to improve the lot of workers in the private sector rather than driving down the conditions, pay and pensions of workers in the public sector.