Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

I am glad to speak on this very important motion, which reflects a total and utter scandal regarding our position as a nation. We no longer value the ordinary people on whose behalf we are contracted to act.

This is but the tip of the iceberg. What is happening now with Irish Ferries, like the rotten apple in the barrel, will spread and ensure that workers will be deprived of what they regard as their rights. They have fought long and hard through their trade unions to get a minimum wage, and while this manipulation is within the law, it is seen by every decent and reasonable person as the exploitation of workers. It must be stopped. There is an onus on the Government and everyone else to ensure that this rot is not allowed to spread. To do otherwise would be a retrograde step.

We are all used to the idea of putting profits before people. For instance, in the Corrib gas project, Shell, the arrogant multinational, has been allowed to do so. What is happening now with Irish Ferries is similar. Today, Shell has been in contempt of a ministerial order to break up a 3 km pipeline that it had absolutely no right to build for 71 days. That is a sign of its arrogance. What is happening with Irish Ferries today, with all those workers fobbed off and forced to take redundancy, is happening so that the company can turn another penny profit. It shows its agenda, which is simply to make profits. There must be a response from the Government and everyone else to ensure that people's rights are protected.

We must ask to what extent our Government is colluding in all this. How much are the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of our conservative politics contributing to what is happening at Irish Ferries, and how much will they contribute in future? Regarding the Rossport saga, five brave men were jailed for 94 days for trying to defend their right to be safe at home. What did Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, do for those men? How much did they do to ensure that people's basic property rights were upheld? I would say that they did very little. Their complimenting each other on their statesmanship told the whole story.

Those who constitute the Technical Group, the Independents, have shown the people the way forward regarding how they can address its agenda. The parties of the Technical Group, the Green Party, Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party, have shown a different point of view regarding how people can stand up for what is essentially right. When decent people are put upon, the people of this country will recognise that and stand up and be counted. They marched in their thousands in support of the Rossport Five and people's right to be safe at home. When the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Fahey, came along and decided to abolish the necessity of planning permission for a previously unknown process to bring gas ashore, they recognised that as something very wrong and protested accordingly.

The people of Ireland will certainly not take this any more. I predict that if Irish Ferries succeeds in going through with this, people will take to the streets in their thousands. They will never again tolerate decent people being put upon by those whose only agenda is profit and who have no wish to treat people decently.

We must look forward and decide what is important. Each of us in the Dáil has a contract to treat our people properly and carry out our mandate to represent our constituents. The parties and Independents of the Technical Group have proudly done so. With Irish Ferries and the Rossport Five, we have learnt the lesson that the conservative parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, cannot be depended on to stand up for the people, and that is where the Technical Group has shown an alternative way forward.

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