Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

It is a great honour to be here, as a relatively newly elected TD, to speak on International Workers' Day. This is a day that rings out not only around Ireland but across the world. Workers in different societies have, for many generations and over hundreds of years, had a constant fight to get their rights, whether it is in industry or otherwise. We have seen it in the United Kingdom, the US and all across the world. While that struggle may have had positive results for many in the industrial world that battle continues in other places. For ourselves, today is special for the trade unions and activists that have made huge changes to and differences in our lives.

We as a country have benefitted. For every man and woman who has ever given their time, effort and dignity to build a better Ireland, the true work, today is the day we reflect on them. Today is about recognising the value and contribution of workers, not just in an abstract way as an economic number on a ballot sheet as is often the case, but as real people, people like my family and yours, like every person in this country who has got up in the morning, sat into a car, got on a train and gone out to work, just to build a better life for themselves, put food on the table, to raise their children and make their best, not only for themselves and their family but also for their communities.

I stand before you as a TD but also as someone who comes from a working family, a family of public servants. My dad was a garda, my mother was a nurse, people who made their contributions and improved society, people who got up every day and not only worked their own jobs but helped other people to go about their lives and to make their own contributions. Nurses and gardaí are interlinked in our communities. It is the value of the people who got up in the morning, who worked late at night. My dad often was on shift work, working nights. As a family we benefitted, we got the benefits of that in our community. Ultimately that is something I have not forgotten. My wife is a schoolteacher and in many ways it is the same thing, continuing to help the people and helping their communities. That is a source of great pride for me.

Like so many people in the country, I too started working young. My first job was when I was 14 years of age washing dishes in the Springfield Hotel. I worked through my teens at other jobs, serving in shops. I worked in Boyers in town, which is gone now, I worked in Bargaintown, and in all those sorts of jobs. I worked with so many different people, people I think of today who worked in their own roles in those places. That taught me at a very young age. Deputies were discussing the importance of young people in the workplace. I saw that myself and it helped develop me into the person I am with the experience I have. Since then even as I developed after that, I worked with people in Dublin Airport and saw the value of the unions in Dublin Airport. I could see the contributions they made in an area like that, and then in the Kerry Group and Circle K. There were thousands of workers in those industries. Those are companies that I worked in. They employed thousands of people and I have seen at first hand the determination and resilience of those people and they are the people I am thinking of again today, people who I worked with.

On a wider scale, from 1921, since the Irish State itself was founded, workers have been at the heart of our success. Ireland has come a long way in the last 104 years and it has been the ordinary people of this country who have helped build it, be it in public services as my family were predominantly, or indeed in agriculture and industry. Brick by brick, block by block, this country has changed and improved. With that, the lives of our workers have improved in that same way. In the early days there was no minimum wage, no legal entitlement to paid holidays, no protections for women in the workplace. As a result of the work of unions, civil society and elected representatives in this House who preceded us, things have changed and improved.

Let me highlight some of the progress we have made since 2011. We have introduced the national minimum wage transitioning to a living wage model, mandatory sick pay, the right to request remote working and indeed the movement towards a work-life balance, which is something we have continued to strive for. It is not always easy, it does not always succeed, but companies are going that way. Even in my own lifetime working in the private sector predominantly, we have seen huge changes in the last 20 years. At the same time, the work has not finished. I know things need to be done. We need to close the gender pay gap. We must invest in more skills and apprenticeships. In this country there is a huge need for them. Workers are needed across all different sectors. We can see the real need for them and the call for increased workers across all segments of society. We must support our front-line public sector workers who carried us through the pandemic. Once again I saw it at the forefront of my own family. We must tackle different forms of precarious employment and safeguard new forms of work. There has been talk about AI in here over the last few months. What changes will that bring? The rights of workers and the positions of workers in the workplace may need to be thought of in that context because who knows which industries will be changed by some of those monumental technological changes that are coming?

When I speak about workers' rights today, I am not just speaking from theory but I like to think I am talking from my own personal and family experience. I saw the benefit of the people who went out to work; they are the people who raised me. I am very conscious of all of those people as I stand here today. Workers are not just contributors to our economy. Often that can be the way it is referenced. They are the foundation of our communities, families and all our public services, which ultimately we are only working here on behalf of.

As a TD for Kildare North, in the last few weeks we have heard the talk about Intel. Intel is based in my home town of Leixlip. It is one of the largest employers in the country. I know there has been so much talk about possible cuts. There is talk about employment numbers, and financial results for Intel. What is really strikes is the individual people who every day wonder how the cuts might come into their area and how it might affect them. That is something we are all very conscious of and I have been trying to limit some of that impact over the last while. They are the people I am also thinking about today. I want to stand up for them as a TD. I have been elected to represent them and it is a great honour for me to be able to do that. That is why I chose to speak here today on this item. I want to legislate for them but I also want to listen for them and honour them and do the best I can for the workers of Ireland and the workers of the world who have contributed so much and have made our society what it is today.

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