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

I will deal with two issues: training and what is happening at Aer Lingus. On training, the plan refers to 50,000 places in education and training, with a focus on digital and green jobs. It refers to 10,000 placements in workplaces through a job experience programme. Many people who will be pushed towards training could be provided with jobs and we need jobs based on direct State-led investment. We have been here before regarding training. In the last crisis, we had the JobBridge scheme, which was synonymous with exploitation and cheap labour. Participants received €188 plus a €50 top-up. The employer in return for 40 hours of work had to pay €1.25 per hour. It was no surprise, then, that employers like Advance Pitstop exploited the scheme and hired more than 25 people in one go. The Government denies this is JobBridge 2.0. It says workers will be paid more. How much more will they be paid? Be specific. Increasing the top-up from €50 to €100 will not cut it. That is still exploitative; that is still cheap labour.

There are more issues than pay. If there is to be training, there has to be real training. How will the Government ensure there is real training and jobs at the end of it? There should be guaranteed jobs at the end of it, certainly a higher proportion than the less than 20% than was the case with JobBridge.

The EWSS goes to companies like Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus is demanding a five-year pay freeze. It wants pay cuts for the workforce, lower starting rates of €12.30 per hour and to cut the sick pay scheme and duty allowances. If this is allowed go through, it will set a dreadful precedent for trade unionists and the trade union movement. It must be resisted. I am confident the workers will resist it and I will support them in resisting it.

I draw attention to a point regarding Cork Airport, where workers received correspondence this morning. Ten weeks of runway repairs will mean 12 weeks of a temporary layoff for them. It is strange these workers are being laid off after being kept on the books for what will be, at that stage, 17 months of a pandemic. What is the agenda here? What is going on? A condition of Aer Lingus receiving EWSS must be that the austerity plan be withdrawn and those workers in Cork be kept on the books.

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