Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

No, the last section demonstrated the injustice of imposing the burden of cuts and adjustments on people earning less than €100,000. This section is the draconian heart of the Bill because it is essentially telling public sector workers that the Government will negotiate with them as long as there is agreement. If the workers dare to disagree, the Government will inflict whatever it likes on them.

We are giving the power to the Minister to do this, making a mockery of negotiation with trade union members, undermining the basis of collective bargaining and moving in a very dangerous direction of dictatorial imposition of cuts in pay and conditions on working people. It is very shameful that it is a Labour Party Minister who is doing this on the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Lock-out. It truly is. The Minister may not wish to believe this, but earlier I spoke to a trade unionist who described this as a legislative lock-out. I cannot mention his name because he did not give me permission to do so, but he was a card-carrying member of the Labour Party. This is how he described the Bill and he is absolutely right because this is what the Minister is doing. He is fundamentally undermining the basis of negotiation between employers and employees and fundamentally undermining collective bargaining. It is a serious attack on trade unionism and it is depressing in the extreme that the Labour Party would choose to do this. The Minister and the Labour Party should be ashamed of themselves.

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