Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At every turn, we are met by Fine Gael which stops us. It is never the right time to legislate to facilitate trade union recognition. It is never the right time to legislate for people to have a right to their tips or for a decent increase for people on the minimum wage. When the Minister of State talks about balance, is he referring to €2,000 for Deputies and ten cent for low paid workers? Is that his idea of balance? That is not balance. We live in a very imbalanced society and we can see that clearly. One of the most shocking statistics arising from this pandemic is the fact that when tens of thousands of people were laid off from their jobs there was not a massive decrease in the tax take. What does that tell us? It tells us that people are not earning enough to pay tax. They are working all the hours God sends in the country that the Minister of State governs but they are not earning enough to pay tax. They are trying to keep body and soul together.

Sinn Féin says that Fine Gael is on the side of landlords because all of the evidence suggests that. We say that the Government is not on the side of workers because all the evidence suggests that too. We make no apologies to the Minister of State, to his leader or any member of his party or his Government for standing up for workers' rights. It is wrong to say that we have characterised trade unions as weak because we have not done so. There is no disputing the fact, however, that trade union density is declining and that suits the Minister of State, his Government and people on the right. It does not suit us and it does not suit workers so we will work to create the conditions to ensure that trade unions can organise and that the voluntarist system, where it does not work, is strengthened. We will also work to ensure that where there are to be legal protections, those protections work in favour of working people. We will not apologise to the Minister of State, his leader or members of his party or his Government for doing that. We have been consistent; consistently on the side of workers and those who have been battered by the policies of this and previous Governments. The evidence is all around us. When the Minister of State goes outside he will see people racing to a drop-off with refrigerated bags on their backs. This is happening in modern Ireland - imagine that. People are racing to the next drop but they are entrepreneurs, they are self-employed. They can just download an app and will be like Michael O'Leary one day. They are starting their own one-man businesses. The Minister of State should look around him and see what is happening. We need strong trade unions and it is our job, as legislators, to create the conditions for trade unions to organise, not to organise for them.

Deputy Funchion and I are two of the few Deputies in this House who have worked with the Industrial Relations Act but if the Minister of State does not want to take our word for it, he should talk to the trade unions. They will tell him what they need. They will tell him where the Act needs to be strengthened. That is what we are doing; we have begun and are continuing the process of speaking directly to trade unions and workers. It is disingenuous to suggest that we came in here to attack trade unions or trade unionists because we have not, would not and do not. The Minister of State knows that and to suggest otherwise is extremely disingenuous. I would have expected it of other people in his party but not of him. My eyes are open now.

See this speech in context