Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I will deal specifically with some of the points made by the Minister. We are opposing these Estimates. The Minister announced yesterday on behalf of the Government that he has asked the Labour Relations Commission to contact all parties with a view to seeing whether they can come back with some new proposals. I agree with the action taken by the Minister and the Government yesterday. As the Taoiseach indicated, we should wait a couple of weeks to see what comes of this opportunity. The Minister should wait until that period has elapsed and the outcome of the discussions is known before coming back to the House with this proposal. We are opposing these Estimates because of the total disregard the Minister has shown for the decision taken by public sector workers last week. I accept that is not a major part of the Estimates. The Minister has embedded the rejected LRC Croke Park II pay proposals in each line of these Estimates. When he published his draft Estimates on budget day last December, the Croke Park deal was not embedded in each line of them.

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