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

This Government is about rebuilding our public services. The reason we are able to do that is because, in the past 12 months alone, we have seen 65,000 extra people back at work. That has provided €1 billion in additional resources for this House to allocate to public services. We are doing that.

In less than two weeks, 800,000 people will get a social welfare increase for the first time in eight years. That includes carers, disabled people, unemployed people and sick people. That is rebuilding our public services. Some €1.5 billion has been reinvested into our health service. Some 250,000 more people are getting operations in our public hospitals now than there were four years ago because we are reinvesting. There are problems because we have had a lost decade in public services, but we are now rebuilding that service. In my area, 5,000 extra teachers and special needs assistants will, between this September and next, be going back into our schools to provide particularly for children with special needs or with disadvantage. We are rebuilding in areas where damage has been done.

When we come to the issue of the public transport service, last year we provided a 21% increase in the subvention to Bus Éireann and other public service obligation bodies. This year, there will be another 11%. That is a one third increase in the investment we are making in the delivery of public services. There is a problem with Expressway. This is an area where Dublin Bus has go to head to head with private competition. It is losing money heavily in that regard and this is an issue at the heart of this industrial dispute. The Deputy asked why the Minister does not intervene. There has been a very long history in Ireland of Ministers not politicising industrial disputes. We have very professional services in the Workplace Relations Commission that support the resolution of even the most intractable dispute.

Those are the professional services that should be used. It is not by accident that we protect those services from political interference, because their very effectiveness depends on them not being undermined by politicians.

This is a difficult area, but on every front we are doing what people are saying needs to be done. We are increasing the subvention for public services, reconsidering the contract for social welfare customers and we are ensuring that the National Transport Authority will be available if a rural service that needs to be restored. It will stand available to provide that on a new basis as a public service contract.

This dispute centres on an area where, under law, subvention cannot be given to Expressway, which is competing head-to-head with private sector providers. That is the law of the land, which the Minister is correctly observing. We need to try to find a resolution and I urge the parties to return to the very experienced people in the WRC to seek a resolution to this dispute and protect people who depend on services.

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