Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and I hope to work with her in the course of the lifetime of this Dáil. It goes without saying that I welcome any motion which seeks to protect workers' rights. In this instance, however, the hypocrisy of the motion is staggering. In its opening lines the motion calls on Dáil Éireann to stand up for working people and ensure employees secure a fair share of national prosperity. These are fine statements any decent person should support, but this is no ordinary Private Members' motion. It is sponsored by a party which, until recently, was a partner in the most right-wing Government since the foundation of the State. In government, the Labour Party and its neo-liberal ally, Fine Gael, went, vulture-like, after the incomes of ordinary working people and waged war on the living standards of the most vulnerable.

The policy of austerity stretched beyond people's pay packets. Underpinned by a harsh and brutal right-wing ideology, funding for key public services was slashed and the State's industrial relations architecture was dismantled. The end result of five years of the Labour Party and Fine Gael in government is that across the board, in the public and private sectors, workers' pay and conditions dramatically deteriorated. The bottom line is that, when in government, the Labour Party not only failed to protect workers but consciously and deliberately introduced policies which increased levels of deprivation, inequality and in-work poverty. These policies were bad for workers and bad for society in general.

During this period, in television interviews, the media and its own policy document, the Labour Party repeatedly described itself as a party for work, as distinct from what Connolly intended, which is a party for workers. In the five years the Labour Party was in government we witnessed a proliferation of precarious work practices and a dramatic increase in the number of workers on so-called if-and-when contracts. We saw the decimation of unionisation and decent work practices in the construction industry and the growth of bogus self-employment practices. Under the watch of the Labour Party, the workers in Clerys, Connolly Shoes and La Senza were robbed of their livelihoods without warning, while unscrupulous, vampire-like business people stripped any available assets. Under the watch of the Labour Party, vulnerable and low-paid workers in Dunnes Stores and their trade union, Mandate, pleaded in the AV Room of Leinster House for legislation to be introduced to protect vulnerable workers from exploitative and vindictive employers.

After five years of the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government, Ireland has the dubious distinction of having the second highest number of low-paid workers in the OECD. On top of this, we must add the decimation of key public services, such as health, the provision of social housing and public transport. In the Ireland of 2016, people go to work and live in emergency accommodation. Workers cannot afford to go to the doctor and their children languish on waiting lists for services which are available on demand in other European countries. This is the legacy of the Labour Party to working people and the exasperated working and middle classes who have nothing more to give. When the Labour Party proposes a motion such as this on workers' rights, it can only be described as a pathetic shift in tactics from a foundering party. If the Labour Party was genuinely concerned about workers' rights, it could have supported the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion last year calling for the legal entitlement of workers to full-time work and banded-hour contracts.

Instead, in the middle of the Dunnes Stores dispute, the Labour Party supported Fine Gael and voted against the Bill. If the Labour Party was genuinely concerned about workers' rights, it could have introduced collective bargaining legislation, compelling employers to recognise and engage with trade unions. Instead, it voted against the Sinn Féin Bill and introduced watered down legislation with the result that unions representing Tesco workers have no automatic right of access to the workplace and there is still no obligation on employers to recognise trade unions.

The Labour Party's new-found concern for workers is fooling nobody and can only be described as political amnesia at its best.

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