Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Deputy Boyd Barrett submitted this yesterday. I shall continue and the Acting Chairman can consider this as a joint submission by all the Deputies concerned.

I am glad the Minister for Finance is in the Chamber. What we would like to have with him today is a quiet measured conversation about the issue I raise which concerns 370 workers at EBS Limited, now merged with Allied Irish Banks. These are very low-paid and middle-income workers. They are coal-face workers, not the erstwhile high fliers who expanded the property bubble and destroyed the economy in the process.

For 45 years workers in the company were paid their annual wages in 13 equal instalments. Therefore, after nine years of service, a worker on a gross income of €30,000 would receive 13 instalments of €2,308, before tax deduction. The 13th instalment was paid in December, before Christmas. For decades this was accepted by everybody to be part of the basic wage and not as a Christmas bonus. It was consolidated into the wage de facto.

On 6 December, possibly as the Minister was on his feet in this Chamber announcing the budget, the workers were informed that their 13th instalment was not going to be paid. They had expected this payment the very next day in a pay packet. Obviously, they had planned for Christmas and had already spent the money on their families' Christmas preparations, etc. They were totally reliant on the payment, given they are very low-paid or middle-paid workers. This is a devastating blow.

A loan facility at 12.5% interest offered to the workers by the management of EBS as an alleged compensation adds insult to the injury. It is because of this great outrage and the injustice the workers feel that they have called a strike on December 20. If it goes ahead, another day's pay will be lost by those workers.

Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us but I understand the Department of Finance made that decision by virtue of powers invested either in the Department or in the Minister himself, in conjunction with AIB. In addition, senior managers on €90,000 a year who had the same arrangement are not having their 13th instalment withdrawn - not that the measure would be justified if they were.

On behalf of those workers I ask the Minister to go into immediate conclave with officials and management of AIB and EBS to ensure this decision is reversed. As it is Christmas time, he could cast himself in the role of Santa Claus rather than Scrooge.

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