Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

A complicating aspect of this, and a point to which the Minister has not responded, is that we have had 20 years plus of social partnership and we set up structures which should always be utilised. I am sure the Minister would agree that the management of IAA should also use those structures. We seem to be in a strange period now following the collapse of social partnership talks prior to Christmas. I would like to address that point. Additional mechanisms are in place to resolve disputes in such a critical area as this one. Workers voluntarily make contracts with employers. I do not share Fine Gael's approach in this area but the stoppages in Dublin, Shannon and Cork Airports need not have happened.

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