Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

We have had a weekend of determined industrial action by bus workers and midnight talks to avert disputes across the public sector. I find it interesting how people on six-figure salaries - including Government Ministers, semi-State CEOs and a couple of trade union leaders - can try to convince workers that the only show in town is one where they have to offer up their hard-won pay and conditions to make savings. Of course, they are ably assisted by a press that is owned by billionaire tax exiles. I am reminded of one of the Taoiseach's predecessors, Charlie Haughey, who in the 1980s told the rest of us that we had to tighten our belts while he unwrapped yet another Charvet shirt.

The recent disputes show a lot about the type of society that is being fostered under the Taoiseach's stewardship. Those policies are being pursued, not because there is no alternative or the Taoiseach has no choice, but because ideologically the Government supports stripping public services and driving down wages and conditions.

The Minister for Transport, Deputy Varadkar, slashes the subsidy to Bus Éireann and is then shocked that the company is somehow losing money. His personnel on the ground - although not really on the ground because some of them are based in Dubai - or his management team come up with the myth that the company's workers are to blame. According to management, these people have an absolute neck to think that they should be paid more for driving through the night, working weekends and doing 12-hour shifts. Let us be clear, bus workers earn a modest wage. They are not the worst paid workers in this country but their money is hard earned. Their wages have already been cut in recent weeks. The expectation that they would endure a cut of another €3,000 to €4,000 is absolutely scandalous.

The issue is what type of society we want to live in. Public services cost money and their value cannot be determined by break-even economics. The social benefit has to be factored in. Our transport costs are the least subsidised in Europe. Even the United States subsidises private transport more than we fund public transport.

Rather than undermining public transport, does the Taoiseach not think it would be far more sustainable, both economically and socially, to increase the subsidy to Bus Éireann and CIE, thus enabling them to slash prices and get more people out of their cars and onto buses? Is it not an obscenity that the Government continues to pay €50 million of taxpayers' money every year - that is ten times the bus cuts - to fund the West Link toll bridge? That bridge has been paid for many times over as a result of the cosy deal done by the Fianna Fáil cohort.

Does the Taoiseach not think it crazy that the taxpayer pays millions every year to public private partnerships because roads are not being used, yet he cannot use taxpayers' money to fund viable rural bus companies? When will the Taoiseach stop subsidising the private sector while at the same time driving down public sector wages and conditions?

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