Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is the reason the Government has refused to implement the Labour Court recommendation. The Minister of State also said, in his supplied script from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, that while he accepts the figures of €6 million per year plus €19 million for the gratuity, this could lead on to enormous, potentially life-threatening sums of €350 million or €400 million. It could potentially do that. Whenever I hear a Minister seeking to defend the indefensible using the word "potentially", I know he has reached the bottom of the barrel. The reality is that all the different organisations that make up the voluntary and community sector in this country are unique and distinct. They all have their own particular characteristics. This motion is about CE supervisors and assistant supervisors only, nobody else. It does not constitute any precedent or create any inevitability that there would be knock-on claims of the magnitude the Government is trying to suggest. Besides, I do not know of any other organisation in the voluntary and community sector that has a Labour Court recommendation stating that those involved in it are entitled to a pension. They are unique. This is confined to community employment supervisors alone. Let us dispel all this nonsense about "potentially" and "knock-on effects", etc.

I thank the people in the Public Gallery for their attendance and their patience. This issue has meandered on now for ten years. I really admire that they have continued to make their case assiduously in spite of all the setbacks, prevarications, delays and false promises that came to nothing. They have persisted with their campaign because they believe so firmly in the justice of their cause. We are all familiar with the Old Testament character, Job, who was supposed to be a man of immense patience. In the patience stakes, the people representing CE supervisors would put Job to shame.

Initially - I know this has been dropped now - when Deputy Joan Burton was Minister for Social Protection, they came up with this argument about FÁS not being represented at the Labour Court. It was an argument that would make Oscar Pistorius's defence seem credible.

10 o’clock

It supplemented that with an argument that was even more incredible.

The time for prevarication is over. People have travelled here from the length and breadth of Ireland. They have come to show all of us here in Leinster House and the country at large how strongly they believe in their case. I am not talking about the Minister of State when I say this, but I believe that these people have been insulted by the Government tonight. They have been insulted because the Ministers responsible, in particular the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, did not have the gumption to come in here and read out the miserable script that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection wrote as a defence for not providing them with their justified claim. In the very last line of the supplied reply from the Minister of State, the final answer these people are getting as a reward for their efforts and their journey tonight, it is stated that any solution to this issue will require careful consideration. This has been under consideration for ten years, and they are now being told that more consideration is required, which will lead to more prevarication and delay.

I assure the people who have travelled here tonight and the country at large that Fianna Fáil is committed to sorting out this issue. It is incumbent on the Minister of State now to withdraw this amendment. It is a despicable, disgraceful amendment and it should be withdrawn. Fianna Fáil's motion should be accepted, the necessary provision should be made and the people should be given a definitive timescale for the granting of their pensions, which they are entitled to as a result of a Labour Court recommendation and for which they have been waiting for ten years.

See this speech in context