Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

What is this except a proposal for wholesale destruction of sections of the public sector and wholesale privatisation? The Government has already killed off tens of thousands of jobs in the public sector and plans to kill tens of thousands more. At the same time it is proposing to privatise services from the same public service it is annihilating. What is this except an agenda to secure widespread privatisation? What is the reason behind it? Is it to create call centre-type operations with sweated workers to replace permanent and pensionable jobs?

The Minister stated the purpose was to reduce costs. He should work with public sector workers by bringing them to the heart of management of the public service. If improvements are to be made in that regard, he should make them. This proposal, however, is an incredible scenario.

Has the Minister not learned from the disastrous history of privatisation in this State, of which Telecom Éireann and Team Aer Lingus are but two examples? The bleeding of Eircom by vulture capitalists has left us years behind other countries in terms of broadband investment, while in Team Aer Lingus we had the destruction of a tremendous aircraft maintenance facility. This is a disaster.

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