Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I want to give the Taoiseach an insight into the vicious assault on workers' wages and conditions which is under way in this country under his stewardship. I want to draw his attention to a delegation present in the Visitors' Gallery which has a keen and personal interest in this situation - a group of workers who did not know last Tuesday morning when they tried to go to work before 7 a.m. that they would be sitting here today. They thought they would be doing what many of them have been doing for years or decades - that they would be out collecting this city's bins. Instead, when they arrived for their ten-hour shift, they were met at the door with a new clock card system. This was a bit of sideshow. They had not heard of this system, but that was not the main issue. The real agenda came after that. They were expected to sign a new contract, with a cut of over 24% in basic wages, not to mention cuts in other allowances, with immediate effect.

Let us be clear on this. These workers were not living the high life anyway. They have a modest wage as drivers and an even more modest wage as operatives. They were being asked to take a cut of between €250 and €270 per week for drivers and between €120 and €140 for operatives. How any of these workers could be expected to take a hit is beyond me. This was an orchestrated manoeuvre to undermine the unionised workers, because the employer immediately marched down to the High Court and got an injunction against them and, with the assistance of the local Intreo office, recruited people to take their jobs. The consequence of bringing people in with no training or experience was that the first truck that drove out knocked down and hospitalised Ray O'Reilly, who is in the Visitors' Gallery. The next night, another truck rammed three cars on James's Street and an ambulance and gardaí had to be called. I wonder whether there will be a fatality as a result of these antics. These unsafe practices will have far-reaching consequences.

The only way the Greyhound company can do what it is doing is by exploiting others to do the work in an illegal manner. What it is doing is making the routes longer and impossible to complete. What happens is that at 5 p.m., when the workers go home, a procurer of casual labour arrives at the car park in Woodies and, like a scene out of "On the Waterfront" selects people to work through the night to clear the bins that have not been emptied.

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