Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not know whether the Deputy is aware of the Labour Court or the Workplace Relations Commission. These are bodies which were set up to deal with industrial relations and which have been very effective in industrial disputes in the past, particularly in the transport sector. In the cases of industrial difficulties we had a couple of years ago, these bodies managed to bring the parties together and to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I welcome the fact that many of those involved in those industrial relations disputes came together in the stakeholders' forum we held last year. We had a meeting in the Mansion House and everybody accepted that it was constructive. It covered a wide variety of subjects and, as a result, a wide range of issues are being researched by a working group of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. These issues include active travel, congestion, finances and funding, Project Ireland 2040, public transport accessibility, public transport in rural Ireland, the regulation of public transport, statistics and trends, transitioning the public service obligation, PSO, fleet to alternatives fuels and technologies, and transport emissions and climate change. There are papers on these ten issues. These are all issues on which those involved in industrial relations, by which I mean the trade unions and employers, are very well placed to have an input. I welcome the fact that they did so on that day. That forum will inform the public policy we are developing.

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