Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Is the Minister struck by the nauseating double standards in many sections of the print media, especially Independent Newspapers, in their coverage of the sending of bully boys onto Irish Ferries ships? This has been reported in the most sedate language. Has the Minister contrasted that with the paroxysms of fury in Sir Anthony O'Reilly's title, the Irish Independent, when it vilified groups of workers such as those in the ESB and An Post who had to resort to some mild industrial action to defend their interests? The same title has an inglorious history in the events of 1913.

Is this contrast due to the number of blue chip capitalists, including leading bankers, and a director of Independent Newspapers, who sit on the parent board of Irish Ferries? Does the Minister agree this suggests that big business strategists as a whole are in favour of Irish Ferries' neo-liberal policy of driving down wages and conditions?

Since workers can now expect little from this Government, the Minister and the Taoiseach having thrown their hands up in the air, does the Minister join the call of the trade union movement on working people in their greatest numbers to demonstrate on 9 December? Will he encourage them to leave work to show this company that workers' power can stop it in its exploitation plans, even if the Government cannot?

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