Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is an incredibly important discussion, not least for the people whose livelihoods have been jeopardised. I fully accept the point made by the Minister that IAG made no legally-binding commitments at the time. It is a point I made in the Chamber when the deal was done, but the problem is that the Government parties at the time, namely, Fine Gael and the Labour Party, sold them, in this House and beyond, as commitments. At the time, the chief executive, Stephen Kavanagh, said he did not foresee compulsory redundancies or the use of outsourcing at Aer Lingus.

From the moment the deal was done, outsourcing escalated. A new job is not an additional job. There have been new jobs created at the expense of existing jobs, not to mind that when we take in all the jobs that have been lost it does not compensate. When we take the expansion of the routes and service, and the proportionate increase in workers coinciding with that, the sums do not add up because the work is being done on the shoulders of outsourced providers on much lower terms and conditions of employment.

There has to be a role for the Government somewhere to say that a company which used to be a semi-State company actively using push factors - and deliberately orchestrating conditions and changing people's long-accepted work practices - is really, in essence, driving people out of their jobs. For those jobs to end up in India, the Philippines and North America is utterly tragic for what was a beacon service and company in our area.

The Minister is right that the airport is a key employer. We must ask what type of employer it is, however. We have to stop the rot and this race to the bottom. I put it to the Minister that it is private, but it is private because it was sold on the basis of lies and commitments. The door is open for the Minister to go back and say that we do not think it is acceptable for anybody in our aviation sector to treat people in the way that those in the guest relations department and other departments are being treated. Not only that, the company should be engaging with its staff and should not be going down the road of outsourcing in any event.

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