Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

How can workers in Ireland take the concept of partnership with any seriousness when every week new scandals of worker exploitation emerge? How can they take the Government as being serious in any sense when, for example, a Polish company which was outed a few weeks ago as a major exploiter can turn around and sack and victimise the workers who brought that exploitation to trade union and public attention and feel the confidence to do this under the present Government? How can Aer Lingus workers take the concept of partnership seriously when the Government is proposing to ram the privatisation of the national airline down their throats, when the experience of privatised industries in this State has been disastrous so far as workers' wages and conditions are concerned, as witnessed in Irish Ferries?

What did the Government decide today on Aer Lingus privatisation? Will the Government make a complete mockery of what ordinary people might consider to be partnership by foisting privatisation against the will of the majority of Aer Lingus workers and throwing them to the stock market wolves with disastrous potential consequences for jobs, pensions, security and their future?

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