Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I repeat my assertion that the Government's handling of this motion last night and tonight is an insult to this House and its Members and to the workers in Irish Ferries. There are at least two senior Ministers involved in this area, namely, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. If one Minister had to be elsewhere, the other should have come into this House to listen and respond to this debate. This is a debate which goes to the very heart of society, not just the economy. It is simply not good enough that a senior Minister was not on the Government benches last night or tonight to hear the voices of the Opposition and Government backbenchers on this issue.

However, this behaviour is typical of the Government's response. The Government amendment is a washing of hands with regard to this issue. This ties in with the fact that, not too long ago, the Government gave a grant of €6 million to Irish Ferries to do exactly the same on the MV Normandy as the company is proposing to do now. It sacked 150 workers on that occasion and now it proposes to sack 543 workers. This Government gave the company €6 million to do that and created a precedent for the action which this deplorable company has now proposed.

The Government's response is also typical, given what we have seen at EU level where the former Minister for Finance and current EU Commissioner, Mr. McCreevy, has supported the EU Services Directive which, if passed, will ensure that service providers from other EU countries will only have comply with the pay, conditions and consumer rights legislation of those countries. In effect, we could have services provided by eastern European companies in Ireland, with workers paid at eastern European rates and under eastern European consumer legislation.

The first two points in the Government amendment assert that Ireland has a full body of employment rights legislation which covers the workplace relationships between employers and employees and that employment rights are not in free-fall. The Minister is well aware of the Gama Construction situation, where the so-called legislation that is in place was simply not good enough to deal with the difficulties that arose and the manner in which workers' rights and entitlements were trampled upon. This Government must show some backbone. It must come into this House with emergency legislation to ensure Irish Ferries cannot do what it is proposing. This is a deplorable proposal which, if allowed to progress, will have the effect of a bad apple in a barrel and will completely rot the barrel in a short period of time. It is up to the Government and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to introduce emergency legislation to stop Irish Ferries doing what it is proposing and this should be done sooner rather than later.

See this speech in context