Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have sought to provide practical solutions for people in difficult situations, whether unemployed or at work. We restored the minimum wage and provided legislation for temporary agency workers. In addition, we restored the JLCs after they had been struck down by the courts. We have also reformed the Workplace Relations Commission to make it easier and more swift for workers to seek redress and have their claims processed. We established the Low Pay Commission to examine the very issue Sinn Féin claimed was top of its agenda. The Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, is to be congratulated because, ahead of the legislation, he has appointed the group that is already working and we will have an early report from it. He has also established a group to look at zero hour contracts, the very issue about which Sinn Féin is concerned. We will introduce legislation on collective bargaining and restore the registered employment agreements which we are debating in the case of the Dunnes Stores strike.

We on this side of the House have set out our stall. We want to deliver full employment on a sustainable basis by 2018. We have a vision for the country which is about getting everyone working who wants to have the opportunity to work. It is about allowing growth and rising living standards, while bringing emigration to an end. We will built this by growing a strong, balanced economy, with high quality enterprise valuing employees and growing employment. Sinn Féin, however, continues to portray a Dickensian view of what employment is about. I heard Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh depict employers as trying to squeeze every last drop of blood from workers.

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