Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The salary of the bank's managing director is not only in excess of the Government's guideline, but is also approximately 20 times what a county council road worker is paid and whose pay the Government is proposing to cut. This day week, every child will be home from school or parents will need to find child minders because all of the schools will be closed. People with medical appointments, many of whom have waited for them for some time, will have them cancelled because hospitals will be operating on a Christmas Day roster. People making urgent telephone calls to social welfare offices will not be answered. If there is a spate of bad weather, there will be no county council road workers to clear the roads and drains because all of the staff will be on strike.

Two weeks ago, I put it to the Taoiseach that it would be better for this country were there a national agreement. I suggested five measures that should form part of that agreement and urged the Taoiseach to engage in talks with the unions concerned so that we would not head into a period of industrial strife and conflict. We are only one week away from a national strike. What are the Taoiseach and the Government doing to avert the strike due to occur this day week, 24 November?

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