Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

I thank Deputy Dowds for raising this matter and for the opportunity to respond.

Stobart Ireland is part of the Stobart Group which, I understand, operates from over 40 sites across the UK and Europe. Stobart Ireland began operating in 2008 winning the transport services contract with Tesco in 2010 to distribute all of the products it keeps at depots at Ballymun and Donabate in Dublin. On 15 February last, SIPTU announced that following a ballot of its members, Stobart drivers had voted to strike over concerns about their working conditions and served notice of industrial action. Stobart Ireland drivers subsequently carried out a 36-hour work stoppage on Thursday and Friday, 23 and 24 February. I understand that a picket by drivers was held at the company's main Irish depot in Ballymun, Dublin on Thursday from 6.00 p.m. until 11.30 p.m.

Rest time, rosters and general working conditions have been identified by SIPTU as the factors that led to the decision to strike. SIPTU maintains that these grievances had been put before the company for some time but the company failed to address the issues. It appears that Stobart Ireland responded to the threat of industrial action by taking the unusual step of initiating its own ballot of drivers. The company claimed that its ballot showed that only a minority backed industrial action. It claimed that the outcome demonstrated a lack of support for the planned strike and called on the union to cease its industrial action. SIPTU described the company ballot as a coercive tactic and denied that the outcome of the company ballot could be deemed to articulate the clear voice of the majority of workers in the driver category.

I understand that Stobart Ireland had initially welcomed the suggestion to attend the Labour Relations Commission on the eve of the industrial action. The company requested that the threat of strike action be lifted as a condition of its willingness to engage with the industrial relations dispute services. However, as the industrial action proceeded as planned, the company declined to engage in conciliation talks. According to reports, the company had flown in 40 agency drivers from the UK to replace the striking workers. SIPTU has claimed that the drivers flown in were not informed of the background to the dispute in Dublin before they arrived. It appears that the company did not proceed, however, to deploy the replacement drivers.

I understand that the Labour Relations Commission is maintaining contact with both parties to the dispute and will continue to remain available to assist in trying to resolve the issues in dispute. I would urge the parties to agree to avail of the services of the State's industrial relations machinery and to engage fully in the process. I urge them to put their difficulties and differences behind them and approach the process in good faith and with a view to accepting the outcome of the process.

Ireland's system of industrial relations is essentially voluntary in nature and responsibility for the resolution of industrial disputes between employers and workers, whether in redundancy or other collective disputes, rests with the employer, the workers and their representatives. The State provides the industrial relations dispute settlement machinery to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences. The Labour Relations Commission has extensive experience in assisting parties to resolve issues of rest time, rosters and other general working conditions and in achieving a high rate of mutually acceptable settlements on such issues. Even what often appears to be the most intractable of disputes is capable of resolution where both sides engage constructively and in good faith in this voluntary process. I would urge the parties involved in this dispute to work together to break the current impasse by utilising the established machinery for dispute resolution, who are available to assist at short notice.

Stobart Ireland is an extremely big company with a large footprint across Ireland. I am aware of it from personal experience on the roads between Cork and Dublin where I have noticed an exceptionally high presence of Stobart trucks. I contend that we have a highly evolved labour relations infrastructure in this country and we would ask companies to engage in corporate social responsibility and come a bit of the road towards meeting needs that will ensure drivers can operate safely. We would urge all companies that win contracts in Ireland to engage constructively with the State machinery set up for dispute resolution. If we can achieve that, I am hopeful some compromise can be hammered out through the labour relations machinery that exists in this country.

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