Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I am a strong believer in social dialogue and I am working with our social partners on the challenges facing society in areas such as housing, climate, education and health services.

That is something that I want to strengthen during my time as Taoiseach. These issues concerning how we could strengthen social partnership in the future were explored in the recent meeting we had with ICTU and IBEC. My officials will work with the partners on how we can enhance and strengthen the existing LEEF programme and approach to make sure we can advance that agenda. That very much speaks to the issue of social justice and also to the area of low wages. I accept that the Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated the gaps and disparities in income terms between different sectors of the economy. The Tánaiste has identified this. The aim of working towards a living wage is in the programme for Government. It is something that will form part of the agenda of the Government, notwithstanding the very difficult circumstances that we are in, with the implications of the pandemic and so forth.

I have raised the issue pertaining to student nurses with the Minister. I do not conduct the negotiations between the HSE and the INMO. There have been negotiations and my understanding is that they are ongoing. There are issues on both sides. I urge that they would be resolved. Nobody wants to exploit anybody in any situation. I hope we will see a resolution of that and a positive outcome to the negotiations that are currently ongoing.

In the context of the social dialogue and the remarks made by Deputy McDonald, one has to be fair all round. The current public service pay talks will commence with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, leading them. Public service agreements were reached under the previous Government and the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, was centrally involved in them. There were no breaches during those talks. My firm view is that the forthcoming engagement with the unions on pay issues will be robust and challenging but will be conducted in the normal way, as previous talks have been, with respect to both sides in terms of the confidentiality that applies to such talks and the teasing out of issues by the various parties to the talks.

I take Deputy Boyd Barrett's point on NASRA. He said he does not agree with the ICTU position. ICTU has a very strong view about new unions emerging, splits from unions, and multiple unions creating difficulties in terms of efficiencies and the effectiveness of negotiations. I have a bit of a conflict myself in this regard. I was reared in a different environment and my late father broke ranks with the then Irish Transport and General Workers Union, ITGWU, and founded the National Busmen's Union, NBU. He was a founding member of the NBU in Cork and was involved in much industrial activity in terms of strikes and other such actions. He always strongly defended the actions he took at the time but, latterly, he also understood the need for balance and some coherence in the representation of workers in various sectors, in terms of how one pursues one's rights to pay, pension entitlements and so on.

However, I understand the point Deputy Boyd Barrett makes. Regarding the GP contract, because of the independent contractor status of GPs, it is in many ways one that must ultimately be adopted by each individual GP in terms of whether he or she signs on for the offer that is presented by the HSE in that regard. My view is that if one has too much fragmentation in unions, that can be very negative too. Historically in Ireland, we had too much fragmentation and that resulted in a lot of unnecessary industrial action and strife when unions were competing with each other to win membership and in so doing undermined workers.

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