Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

We have seen complete chaos at Dublin Airport in recent months. On 29 May, more than 1,000 passengers missed their flights. That chaos flows directly from the actions of the management of Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, two years ago. It chose to slash staff numbers and drive wages and conditions down taking advantage of the pandemic to drive through a shock doctrine. That is what it did. We have been warning about this from the moment it happened. However, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, would not listen. He knew that the DAA, while receiving huge amounts of public funding during the pandemic, was using the pandemic as an excuse to cut directly employed, unionised workers and replace them with workers on low wages and poor contracts. The Government allowed the DAA to get away with that. When the DAA announced plans to sack hundreds of workers, I spoke out multiple times in the Dáil and warned that it would be disastrous. I talked to many workers in the DAA who told me that it would be a disaster. They also told me of the terror tactics that were being used by the company to drive people out. Real fear was put into workers by telling them they had the option of voluntary severance, a career break of up to five years, reduced hours or, alternatively, remaining in their jobs and agreeing so-called new ways of working that involved big changes in terms of contracts, roles and a threat of pay reductions of up to 60%. It was clear, and we warned at the time, that these workers would be needed again in the future but the DAA, being run on a commercial basis by a guy on close to €400,000 a year, including pension entitlements, was focused on getting rid of unionised, directly employed workers and replacing them with contracted agency staff on lower wages and less favourable conditions.

In regard to security workers, the DAA got rid of 248 workers out of a pre-pandemic total search and security workforce of 858. Close to a quarter of the total workforce was let go. That is why we are in the current crisis in terms of the massive queues. The crisis in regard to cleaning the airport is the consequence of a similar approach. The DAA has been advertising to hire new security staff who must be available 40 hours a week but who are only guaranteed 20 hours' work a week on a salary of €14.14 an hour. The weekly salary for 20 hours' work at that rate amounts to just €283. The company has not been able to get the staff on that basis, and the result is the disaster we have seen.

The Government's answer is to send in the Army. This is papering over the problems that are consequences of the DAA's decisions. It is a short-term approach that could temporarily deal with the issues but at the cost of long-term problems. The issue is the poor wages and conditions offered by the DAA and the need to have more directly employed, full-time security staff. In effect it is a further attack on workers. The Government, which stood by and let DAA put profit before workers and the efficient operation of the airport, is planning to compound that attack by allowing the Army to do the work that directly employed workers had done prior to, in effect, being made redundant. It is ironic that the Government's response to problems caused by low pay and poor conditions is to bring in other workers on low pay and with poor conditions. Some 85% of Irish Defence Forces personnel earn less than the average industrial wage. It adds insult to injury. I welcome the reports that security staff at Dublin Airport are warning that they will resist attempts to use the Army at the airport. I offer them our full support.

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