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

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for that. The Taoiseach's responses to the previous speakers reveal what a fantasy world he lives in, one which has no bearing on the real lives of ordinary citizens. Does he not think it is an indictment of his Government that the grey army has had to take to the streets again on this wet and miserable day, not to enrich themselves and not for their own personal gain but to defend the idea of society's social wage, the rights and entitlements built up over decades that make the difference between a decent civilisation and absolute poverty, rights and entitlements which the Taoiseach's Government has consistently stripped away, not because it is necessary and not because it does not have another choice but because of its relentless pursuit of the ideas of neoliberalism?

I do not think the pensioners will be alone. They will probably be joined on Thursday by another section of society. This time it will be Dublin Bus workers, who face their fourth ballot on the so-called new restructuring plan, which obviously is not new at all and is just a rehash of the previous three. The Government can dress it up anyway it likes, what is being proposed for these workers is the taking of more than €6 million out of their pay packets as part of a rationalisation package of more than €12 million, the erosion of their jobs and conditions and the bringing in of a race to the bottom, and just in case they might have the neck to reject that package again, the Government has focused their attention. The Taoiseach's Ministers have come out and told them there will be very stark consequences if they vote "No". Reminiscent of William Martin Murphy, these people are being told "vote for this, or else". Capitulate or the alternative will be worse. They are aided in this by the media chorus telling them why this cannot be done and asking what is wrong with Dublin Bus workers when everybody accepts being bled dry.

Not everybody else accepts being bled dry. The members of ASTI, the junior doctors and the tens of thousands of other workers who voted against the recent pay deals do not accept it. At the heart of this discussion, as with the protest today, is what type of society we want to live in and what will be the Government's legacy. Public services cost money and it is not good enough for the Taoiseach to expect workers to pay for that out of their wage packets because his Government is not prepared to invest and properly subsidise a decent transport system in this State. The reason it is not prepared to do that is not that it does not have the money, it is that it is too busy subsidising the wealthy.

Like many citizens, I thought the Taoiseach has some neck yesterday to give his address to the nation and talk about a welfare dependency culture, a code for an onslaught on poor and vulnerable people, but he said nothing about the dependency culture of the parasites who got us into this mess in the first place, the people he has no problem bailing out and subsidising. Instead he prefers to go to low-paid bus workers or pensioners and ask them to pay up.

When is the Taoiseach going to end this economic and social lunacy and start investing in public transport and services and stop expecting workers to pay for this through an erosion of wages and conditions, stripping these companies bare and facilitating a privatisation for the wealthy interests he so clearly represents?

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