Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

As Deputy Gilmore is aware, that is not the case. Social partnership has been tremendously successful in avoiding unnecessary disputes but has not eliminated them. As I noted earlier, while I deplore the hardship that has been inflicted on the travelling public as a result of the dispute, I recognise that legitimate issues are involved. It is not for me to call an industrial dispute. This particular dispute has existed for many months and has nothing to do with any topical issue that has arisen in the past few weeks. It has been at conciliation at the Labour Relations Commission for many months. It went through that process and was subsequently the subject of a full Labour Court recommendation, which sided with the company and its management. Thereafter, there were ongoing discussions.

However, stating what the Labour Court does will not resolve any dispute. As I noted earlier, its recommendations are not binding. The Deputy was correct in one respect, namely, this constitutes the substitution of old-fashioned conflict for what should be sensible negotiations and agreement. The company does not benefit from this and I believe that creative solutions should be found as in any other dispute. I urge the parties to use the highly effective industrial relations machinery available to resolve this issue. Many people working within this machinery are familiar with Dublin Bus and have the capacity to deal with this issue, which has persisted for some time.

In fairness to the company in this case, it went through the process. I am usually critical of those who do not go through the machinery of the State, which we support through social partnership. With the exception of the Labour Relations Commission, this machinery preceded social partnership. The Labour Court existed before social partnership and people should abide by it. However, the dispute is now under way and people have ignored both the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court. At least they should try to find creative solutions and to stop the hardship inflicted on the travelling public.

In respect of Aer Lingus, all Members are aware that many difficult change issues arise because of the nature of change within that sector. I recognise that discussion on this particular issue has been ongoing without resolution for the better part of six months. It is clear the threatened action will have an impact on customer behaviour. Bookings will be lost and confidence in the airline might well be affected, which is in the interests of neither the company nor its employees. The national implementation body, which acts under the remit of social partnership and Towards 2016, has met the company and the trade unions recently. It is considering whether it can make a useful recommendation to the parties regarding the difficult issues that have arisen. It is best to deal with and resolve them by agreement, rather than by risking lasting damage in an industrial dispute.

I do not accept Deputy Gilmore's suggestion that these difficulties reflect a wider problem in industrial relations. More than 2 million people work every day and nowadays there are only a handful of disputes. On the contrary, the very salience of the issues at Dublin Bus and Aer Lingus reflects instead the extent to which industrial peace and harmony, as well as the smooth management of change, has been the norm in the partnership process and there is no reason this pattern should not continue into the future. I do not believe there is any connection between any of these issues and what David Begg said. In fact, I was at the meeting and I read the speeches of both David Begg and Jack O'Connor. What both of them said, as I understand it, is that they accepted that the increases recommended by the review body were the result of an independent assessment based on the principles of comparability which are an established feature of public sector pay determination. The pay increases reflect trends in the private sector at senior levels. These private sector trends were the primary focus of the comments made by David Begg and Jack O'Connor. They made comments about the private sector right across the board. They were commenting not on the increases that were paid under the review body but on the increases across the private sector, and they clearly have a point.

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