Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste says that the Government has taken neither a hard nor a soft line. That is not true. In this Dáil on 12 March, the Minister for Health indicated a possible softening of the Government line when he said he was hopeful that the dispute could be settled and agreed to requests that the Department would approach the HSE about this matter. I do not believe that any approach ever took place. I think the Minister was possibly overruled on this matter and more hard-line voices have taken over, including the voice of the Taoiseach on 27 March, when he said there would be no such talks. He was standing over the union-busting stance of the HSE in this regard. That is what it is, a union-busting stance. What the Tánaiste has done today is throw out the same mantras, the same robotic approach, the same attempts to distance himself from this dispute.

In reality, the Tánaiste has given a green light to the HSE to continue to refuse to talk to this union and to adopt a union-busting approach. What he has said will have been heard on the picket lines at St. Nessan's Road, Dooradoyle, Limerick, the Kinsale Road, Cork, Davitt Road, Dublin and right around the country. I believe it will inform the choices of those workers who have requested their union to summon an emergency general meeting in eight days' time. Their decisions on that day will be largely informed by the hard-line stance the Tánaiste has taken today. The consequences of that will be at his door and at the door of his Government.

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