Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As well as the prospect of 17,000 teachers engaging in strike action, there is the prospect of 12,500 gardaí withdrawing their labour. There is also a very real prospect that nurses and doctors will engage in industrial action in the near future. They are doing this not out of greed or selfishness but because of very legitimate concerns about their pay and conditions.

These concerns are justifiably shared throughout the public sector following seven years of pay cuts by the Taoiseach's Government, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil. There is a real prospect of school closures and of communities being without gardaí and this is a sure sign the Government is failing to address the growing number of industrial relations disputes to the detriment of workers and the public at large, including school pupils.

The vast majority of public servants want and deserve the fair and timely unwinding of the FEMPI cuts and the pay restoration they need. We know it cannot be achieved overnight. That is a given, but it can be time limited through direct dialogue and the formation of a new pay agreement that offers a road map to full pay restoration. What is required is meaningful dialogue that sets out a clear and sensible plan for the provision of full pay restoration which prioritises those on low and middle incomes. Instead, the Government is ducking and diving.

The demands of the teachers and An Garda Síochána are not unsurmountable. In our alternative budget, Sinn Féin provided for the restoration of allowances for all teachers and gardaí recruited post-2011, which are core demands of the ASTI and the GRA, respectively. Pay equality for post-2011 entrants also needs to be put in place before the scheduled end of the Lansdowne Road agreement. The Government's current position that this measure can only begin in two years' time is just not feasible. Kicking the can down the road, the habitual sport of this Government, will not solve the problem.

Does the Taoiseach agree that allowances should be extended to all new entrants, that the next round of talks for a new public sector pay agreement should begin without delay and that any new pay agreement must set out a clear timetable for a single pay scale for public workers and the restoration of allowances?

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