Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment submitted by Solidarity-People Before Profit. We are debating transport in Dublin, but we cannot have such a debate without dealing with the question of the workers who provide that public transport, including those in Bus Éireann who are based at Broadstone or drive buses in and out of Busáras in the capital as well as outside Dublin. Currently, these workers are considering recommendations from the Labour Court. I put it to the Minister that they are being asked to do so with a gun to their heads. A couple of weeks ago, we read in The Sunday Business Postthat the company's board had indicated that if workers chose to reject the recommendations, it would file for examinership within a matter of hours. That is blackmail. It is disgraceful and deserves to be exposed. It is not industrial relations - it is thuggery, pure and simple. I want to put that on the record. Without such threats, is it likely that workers would accept what is a poor deal? It means 200 jobs lost as well as pay cuts and a disimprovement in conditions for a not insignificant proportion of the workforce. The powers that be were forced to make some improvements in pensions and to retreat on the scale of the pay cuts that were originally planned. This change only happened because of the strike action waged by workers over the three weeks during which they were out.

The key question about the deal is whether it strengthens or weakens the company in the face of competition from private operators. What happened in Cork last week can be indicative in that regard. The diktat came down from the top that there should be no more than 48 hours worked in any given week. Many people worked a longer week than that, but the change was to take immediate effect. The result, which the workers and experienced union activists had warned about, was the company's inability to operate 17 of its daily services on the Friday of the May bank holiday weekend, including the Waterford route, the Goleen-west Cork route and the city and suburban routes. The policy undermined the company's ability to deliver a service, increased its reliance on private operators and worsened the service to the general public.

This gives us a glimpse of where the deal is leading Bus Éireann. There can be no solutions to the problems at the company without a significant increase in public funding. I am in favour of an investment of more than €9 million, but the latter amount would solve the immediate problems. This comes at a time when the political establishment is prepared to spend more than €10 million on the trials of the Jobstown defendants in the Circuit Court as well as other trials that it has planned.

This is a poor deal from the point of view of the workers and there is blackmail involved. Should the workers choose to vote "No" to the proposals, we will stand by them entirely in applying the necessary political pressure on the Minister, Deputy Ross, and the Government to give public transport the funds that it deserves.

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