Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Of course, we want people to have proper decent jobs in the public sector with proper pensions and conditions, but that has been made far more difficult by the fact that the Government and the previous Administration did not replace up to 30,000 public sector workers. Does the Minister not see the difficulty of staff in PeoplePoint with up to two years experience who hope to be made permanent but who might now face the dole? It is not fair to regard them as complete outsiders competing with others applying for the first time. Surely it is a matter of justice. I ask the Minister to give an assurance that the people concerned will move to permanent positions. What is the position of those with contracts of indefinite duration who as a result of threatening legal action had inferior conditions under which they were employed on temporary contracts in being made permanent?

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