Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise my comments and questions in the context of Covid and Brexit. I listened to Dr. Gabriel Scally on the radio this morning arguing for some form of quarantining and looking towards a zero-Covid strategy. He used the example of the level of co-operation between this State and the Northern Ireland state and the image of Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, who famously became known as the Chuckle Brothers, working well together. Dr. Scally argued that if these two states can work well together on the Brexit deal, then they can work well together on something like quarantining at our airports and ports. The Government needs to give this serious consideration. Telling us that a zero-Covid strategy will not work because we are an Island nation of two different jurisdictions is just nonsense. An island nation with two different jurisdictions has just worked out a very complex Brexit trading deal. Therefore, we need to push hard against that argument and look for an investigation into an all-island zero-Covid policy. I say that to all parties involved, North and South, in the Assembly and in Dáil Éireann.

It is often said that the EU can be held up as a beacon of all sorts of rights, including women's rights, workers' rights, fairness, trade, sustainability, environmental policies, etc. People were fearful of Boris Johnson and the era of Trump and Putin. I understand how people are afraid of the arguments made against immigration, but the EU certainly is not a beacon. I refer, in particular, to the Mercosur and the CETA deals. It is outrageous that the State, with the EU, is pursuing deals of an international trade level that are not at all sustainable or environmentally- or worker-friendly. As in the past, there was no problem with the EU, with the compliance of our Government, allowing for the containment of immigration, whereby thousands of migrants lost their lives in the Mediterranean or were forced back into slave camps in Libya. These are issues that we really must get a grip of, and have our own policies on.

Finally, I wish to raise the issue of workers' rights in the context of Covid. Despite much lobbying by all the airlines, which came to the Government with their hands out asking for help and claiming the industry was in trouble, none of the big companies which made vast profits from air travel has ever offered to pay for testing at airports or other track and trace facilities and instead have relied on the State. Nevertheless, they are using this opportunity of Covid to pull back on workers' rights. I refer in particular to Ryanair, one of the biggest airlines in Europe. They are increasing the use of bogus self-employment. They are changing people's contracts and giving them much more precarious contracts. They are sacking trade unionists. They are using the loopholes in European legislation as a cover for this. We must be a voice, along with other countries, on this issue. I sent a letter to the Ministers at the Department of Transport, asking them to sign it, and I got nothing back, but a statement to say that they had taken note. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and, lately, the Netherlands have signed a campaigning letter which states that we need to work co-operatively together, both in our transport and social protection departments, to stop the use of bogus self-employment and social dumping, particularly in the airline industry. I would like the Minister to respond. I ask him to pursue the issue with the Ministers at the Department of Transport and ensure that they join with those other progressive ministers for transport who are campaigning on this issue.

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