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

I am sharing my time with Deputies Shane Ross and Ruth Coppinger.

I appreciate that the Taoiseach has had to go, but there are a few points I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, will pass on to him. I really want to focus on two areas. First, in a speech, the points made in which have been much repeated by the Government, the Taoiseach referred to the priorities of growth and employment, both for Ireland and the wider European economy. In the speech he also referred to the need to combat poverty and social exclusion.

What I really want to flag is the question of whether the policy of producing jobs and growth is failing to acknowledge or address what is now becoming apparent as a really savage assault, under various guises, on the wages and conditions of workers in both the public and private sectors. It is either a direct assault by employers on pay and conditions or an assault through the use of so-called labour activation schemes which, in reality, create a new pool of cheap labour, whereby people are working for nothing or next to it. Obviously, this exacerbates the increasingly widespread phenomenon of the working poor. Often people work for very long hours, up to 60 hours a week, and are still poor and unable to pay their bills which are increasing daily with new charges, including water and property charges. Those who are making all the efforts to go out and work and want to contribute are suffering and having their wages and conditions assaulted by what is really a pincer movement involving governments and employers in the private sector. It means suffering for workers. Moreover, there is insufficient growth and a very serious danger of deflation or a lack of growth, as alluded to by Deputy Micheál Martin. In other words, there could be growthless jobs. This phenomenon is apparent in the economy and becoming increasingly apparent across Europe. One can create jobs, but if staff are not paid properly, they will have no money to spend. Thus, economic growth will not be generated. This can be part of a dangerous, deflationary cycle, which is exactly what is happening.

Deputy Clare Daly mentioned Greyhound today. Is it a coincidence that Bausch & Lomb opts for a 20% pay cut and tells staff it will close down if they do not accept it, while Greyhound is implementing absolutely savage pay cuts of 20%? There are vicious tactics against the workers. Another dispute that has not attracted many headlines concerns what is happening in Cement Roadstone Holdings. There has been a dispute for several weeks in which the employers are seeking pay cuts of 20% for workers who are earning between €25,000 and €30,000 a year. They already took massive pay cuts in 2012. Now, a further pay cut of 20% is being sought by the company against the workers who are on salaries far lower than the average industrial wage. CRH is stating that if they do not accept the cuts, it will shut down the plants. It is taking out injunctions against the workers whose conditions should be contrasted with those of the bosses of such companies. As Greyhound is incorporated in the Isle of Man, we do not even know how much profit it is making. This year the director of CRH had a package, agreed at the AGM, of €7.2 million in total. This is unbelievable; it is the highest in the industry across Europe. As part of a remuneration review referred to at the AGM, it was said the executives of CRH were underpaid. This is unbelievable at a time when the wages and conditions of workers are being slashed with bully-boy tactics. What are the Government and European Union going to do about this savage assault by employers which is now an accelerating race to the bottom in terms of wages and conditions? Nothing is being done by governments about this and they are actively encouraging it with so-called labour activation schemes.

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