Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach knows well that type of appeal is meaningless, particularly given circumstances in which overwhelming numbers in the unions concerned took the decision to take strike action. If the Taoiseach is serious about averting the strike - I hope he is, although I did not detect that from the tone of his answer - he and his Ministers need to engage directly in these talks rather than leaving them to officials. We are a week away from a strike. The Government will either make a serious attempt to avert it or it will not.

Were this a strike by unions seeking a pay increase, everyone in the House and elsewhere would tell them to negotiate or, if they could not reach agreement in negotiations, use the Labour Court, the conciliation and arbitration mechanisms or the State's other industrial relations machinery. In the current circumstances, the Government is seeking to reduce the pay bill, but the same rules should apply. The Government should negotiate or, if an agreement is not possible, use the State's industrial relations machinery to resolve issues that cannot be agreed. What should not be allowed to occur and into which the Government is sleepwalking is a strike next Tuesday. If that strike goes ahead, the Government will inevitably go down the road of conflict, industrial action and strife, which is not what the country needs. We need a period of time where people pull together, not engage in conflict. The Government has a responsibility to roll up its sleeves and try to reach agreement with the unions concerned to avert that strike.

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