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

When news broke of a breakthrough on the vaccine front, the share values of the airlines rose the following day on the New York Stock Exchange. International airlines increased in value. The group that owns Aer Lingus was up 39%, Easyjet was up 30% and Ryanair was up 16%. There is a long way to go and it is only light at the end of the tunnel but we have begun to see improvements for shareholders so when will we see improvements for workers?

There has been cold cruelty shown to Aer Lingus workers in this State in recent months. They were reduced to 30% of their former pay and the short time working payments to which they are entitled were blocked, first by the company and now by the State.

A worker on the pandemic unemployment payment received €350 a week but Aer Lingus workers whose short-term working payments were being blocked were in some cases on as little as €317 per fortnight, meaning that school uniforms could not be bought and rent could not be paid. Petrol could barely be bought to get to work. The workers' mental health was kicked around the room like a football by a management that wanted them to quit without redundancy or except drastic changes to working conditions. There has been ongoing State collusion in this regard. Why the hell has the Minister not sent an instruction to the Intreo offices stating the money to which the workers have been entitled from March should be paid immediately instead of forcing them to jump through loophole after loophole?

With the news on the vaccine and with the industry beginning to look to the future, the old agenda of privatisation and a race to the bottom must go. We need a new agenda based on not-for-profit connectivity and workers' rights. This will be debated quite a lot in this House in the coming weeks and months. We will put these issues, including the re-nationalisation of our national airline, Aer Lingus, on the agenda.

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