Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

That was not an answer to the letter written by Unite, the protest held today or the questions I asked. It is very unfortunate that neither the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, nor a Minister of State at the Department of Finance is available to deal with these queries, which are directed at the Minister.

Capita holds extremely lucrative State contracts that are currently worth €140 million, which is a significant amount of money. It forms part of a small minority of rogue employers that are prepared to disregard the State's industrial relations machinery. Some 95% of all Labour Court recommendations are implemented by employers and Capita is, therefore, in a minority of 5%.

In view of those factors, it is the Government's right to say, as it should, that Capita will not receive any more public contracts until it agrees to implement the Labour Court recommendation and other recommendations. It is appropriate and right for there to be a public obligation on companies that receive public contracts not to treat their workers in the extremely cruel, Grinch-like fashion that Capita has, nor to disregard the industrial relations mechanisms set up to decide on disputes involving workers.

As regards the more general references made by the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, to collective bargaining and so on, Capita refused to engage with Unite or attend the Workplace Relations Commission or the Labour Court and is now refusing to implement a Labour Court recommendation. That illustrates a weakness in the so-called voluntarist model of industrial relations in this country. The right for workers to freely organise, become involved in unions and collectively bargain means that if the majority of workers in a workplace join a union, the employer should deal with the union rather than ignoring it and the industrial relations machinery.

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