Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is grossly unfair that those people will be reduced from earning a living to being dependent on social welfare and the old age pension. I have no doubt that, if the Government side engaged constructively with the trade unions, SIPTU and IMPACT, it would find willing partners who would work might and main to get a reasonable resolution that takes cognisance of the issue involved and, in particular, the country's ongoing tight fiscal situation.

The Deputy is right that there was a pathway towards dealing with the issue in terms of gratuities, etc., which would be paid, but it would recognise that a precedent would not be set. Let us have a formal commitment to set about implementing the Labour Court recommendation of 2008 and demonstrate that the Government respects the ruling of the Labour Court as the independent industrial relations body of last resort of the State. These supervisors have waited patiently for justice on the issue for the past nine years and we should allow them have it. Let us stop hiding behind the fig leaf that they are not employed by the State. In some local authorities, some CE supervisors did get pensions. Local authorities were in a position to provide them where they were engaged with the local authority. Therefore, let us stop this nonsense and get to the root of the problem. Former Deputy Jack Wall had a pathway to work with Jack O'Connor then. Let us implement that and it would solve the problem.

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