Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The reaction of many people on the employer's side to the addition of 1 May as a public holiday was that it would have a costly impact on our competitiveness. While everyone would welcome further public holidays, we must be careful in terms of matters such as competitiveness, productivity etc. Given that progress has taken place in the talks on Sustaining Progress and previous national agreements, the appropriate place for discussion for any further improvement in public holidays is in that forum. I respectfully suggest that is the place where it should be dealt with.

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