Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

It is important to realise that a combined effort brought us to this point. The difficulty is that the 1990 Act, introduced by Deputy Bertie Ahern, who is now Taoiseach, provided major protection for employers. It defined how workers could picket and outlawed secondary picketing but never asserted the right of workers to join a trade union or granted a trade union an automatic right of recognition for negotiating purposes. As long as that further step is not taken, the majority of workers will receive little protection. The courts will determine that the 1990 Act gives no protection to workers who are not organised members of a recognised trade union or a trade union with a licence to negotiate. Not all trade unions have such a licence. We need a department with responsibility for labour, with the sole remit of protecting workers and enhancing the way we treat workers.

Financially, what happened at Gama Ireland was a major scandal but it was minor in terms of workers in this country.

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