Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----in trying to blame some kind of capitalist system for every dispute that occurs. What is happening here is a dispute between Ryanair and some of its pilots. Our concern is that this dispute is resolved quickly and the travelling public is not discommoded in a significant way. As such, it is regrettable that the dispute was not solved yesterday when the two parties and their representatives engaged with each other. Our perspective on this as a Government is that we want to encourage both sides to find a resolution as quickly as possible. A lot of people rely on Ryanair to travel, for business, holidays and other needs. We want to see the travelling public respected by both sides by being informed in time if flights are going to be cancelled, which by and large has happened to date. We do not want to see a further escalation that discommodes the travelling public. What we want to see is a fair dispute resolution that is fair to workers and that can be agreed to by a company that is providing a hugely important service to the travelling public. The same goes for the LloydsPharmacy dispute.

The Deputy's description of an Ireland of very low pay under some kind of negative capitalist system does not reflect reality. Pay has actually increased by 2.5% on average over the past 12 months. We are now down to an unemployment rate of just over 5%.

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