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

Last Wednesday saw tens of thousands of workers striking in Northern Ireland. It was the biggest strike there in ten years. The strike involved four civil service unions and five teacher unions defending pay in the face of cost-of-living crisis. More than 2,000 workers attended the strike rally at Belfast City Hall. Meanwhile, Oxfam has advised that workers in the Republic of Ireland have suffered a 3.9% pay cut as wages lagged behind inflation over the past year, that the average worker lost more than €2,000 and that the working population as a whole lost on incredible €5 billion. Given that the Government has failed to defend workers' living standards, is it not time for working people in this part of our shared island to follow the example of their Northern Ireland counterparts?

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