Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I said yesterday what I wanted to say on this terrible business and will come back to it when the Government's legislative proposals are ready.

I wish to ask the Taoiseach about the Government's response to the breakdown of talks for a new social contract and ask him to respond to the decision of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions not to enter into talks at this time, thus making the prospect of a new social contract less likely. Does the Taoiseach acknowledge that this reveals the concerns that exist, quite widely, about the operation of social partnership, the handling of the dispute at An Post and the manner in which the necessary modernisation there is being driven, the manner in which the pensioners are being blackmailed as a factor in driving the programme of reform and the decision of Irish Ferries to dismiss its entire workforce and to employ people at reportedly less than half the national minimum wage? The Taoiseach will recall that on the day the Dáil started this term I raised this issue with him and he denounced the practices being operated by Irish Ferries. Yet it is the issue of displacement, more than any other, and its implications throughout the economy that has caused the breakdown of the talks. Whereas the Taoiseach roundly condemned Irish Ferries that day he has not, nor have any of his Ministers, since said what he intends to do about it. His letter to the leader of SIPTU has completely failed to address the issue. The Taoiseach could do a number of things. For example, the Labour Party has prepared a Bill which seeks to build on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It addresses the question of whether a link exists between a flagship and the state in which it is registered and enables the Minister to prohibit a vessel being registered in a state to which no connection exists.

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