Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It would have been better if management and unions had resolved all these issues in advance and had looked at some of the best practice of the national centre for partnership and performance. The national implementation body works out of my Department, or at least it is engaged by my Department under social progress. It engages itself in many disputes but does not get into the issues of disputes.

The NCPP is not the Labour Court, the Labour Relations Commission or the conciliation service but it has been trying to research best practice — partially academically, I accept — and to identify practical approaches which further develop workplace partnerships with particular regard to the contribution of employee enterprises and enterprise participation, workplace learning and all of the other matters in which it is engaged. I think Deputy Rabbitte would agree that, in many companies — often more so in the private sector than in the State sector — there are very good partnership models which operate very well. NCPP has been trying to develop successfully with few resources and few staff, good case studies which can help in those issues. In the few years it has been operating, it has been doing that. It does not, of course, solve all problems but it has a number of very significant work cases.

In regard to An Post, the Minister has spent much time in the past few months engaging with the staff and the unions and trying to engage them in terms of the Labour Court to try to resolve many of the outstanding industrial relations issues. It has been quite difficult for several months. I am not involved in it on a day to day basis but from what I know of it, both sides could do with working together a bit better rather than trying to jump each other. I hope they can respond to the national implementation body and go to the Labour Court to try to resolve these issues because they all have a vested interest in turning their company around, trying to explore what ends of the market are viable for it and getting on with it. Being involved in industrial disputes damages them.

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