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

It would be wrong to allow this occasion to pass without registering the treachery that was committed yesterday by the Government, in particular, the Labour Party, in ramming through the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill. The Tánaiste is a former ITGWU official and member of a party that emerged from battles over the right to join a trade union of one's choice that brought this city to a standstill. That he would support a Bill designed to threaten workers that should they dare to say "No" again, they would be met by further cuts is almost unbelievable and a new low for a party that we did not believe could sink any lower.

It is a peculiar form of democracy, where one speaks of free engagement and negotiation, when the Government effectively offers workers a gun and tells them to either shoot themselves or it will blow their heads off. This approach is becoming an all too common feature of the Labour Party in government. It is exactly the same position it took with the hated home tax when it told people to hand over the money or it would forcibly deduct it from them with penalties. The Labour Party has become the promoter of dictatorial legislation because it knows it has lost the battle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people and does not have a mandate for the policies it is trying to ram through. Where is the Government's emergency legislation in the public interest to deal with the multinational corporations which only pay 2% taxation or the massive salaries and bonuses of bankers? It is nowhere to be seen because the Labour Party is not only complicit in these attacks but at the forefront of them.

The Bill passed by the Government last night goes far beyond a wage cut. It undermines fundamental trade union principles, namely, the right to negotiate one's terms and conditions of employment and the right to join a trade union. The Government has denied these rights to a section of the public service and gone even further by introducing enabling legislation that will allow a future Minister to change the terms and conditions of public sector employees. The Tánaiste and his colleagues, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, and Deputies Keaveney and Wall earned their living from the trade union movement. Half the Deputies opposite used trade union members' funds to get elected before betraying them in this House by introducing anti-union legislation.

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