Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)

I will start by thanking the Deputies for bringing forward this motion. I also genuinely commend the Minister of State for delivering that script with a straight face. I was quite shocked by what I heard. You would honestly think that it was worth celebrating that the Government had promised ten days' paid statutory sick leave and is now cutting that in half. You would think workers would be on the streets absolutely commending the Government for the fact that it has kicked auto-enrolment to touch yet again. How many times is it now? The Government has been talking about auto-enrolment for 20 years. How many times has it kicked this touch? The Government knows the people who will benefit most from auto-enrolment are low-income workers. It knows that its friends in industry and its high-earner friends all have nice, tidy private pensions. It will move heaven and earth to ensure those pensions are protected, but ordinary workers and workers on low incomes can wait.

The same is true of paid domestic leave. We proposed ten days; the Government cut that in half. Again, there has been delay after delay. Workers are at the back of the queue time and time again. The Government talked an awful lot about the living wage in the run-up to the election. It was not even five minutes in office before it kicked that to touch. Again, that is a benefit for low-income workers so it would have absolutely no interest to the Minister of State or his partners in government. It is not even that we see the influence of Deputy Michael Lowry. We see that every day of the week, but the Government was like this anyway. It never had an interest in workers or their ' rights, and that was writ large all over the Minister of State's script. He talked about the compelling reasons to oppose the Bill. There are not any. I read the script and then read it again. There are no reasons contained within it. If the Minister of State is honest, he will know that.

The Minister of State referenced the commitment to finalising an action plan to promote collective bargaining. I thought that was a joke. You do not need to promote collective bargaining. Workers are not stupid. A blind man on a galloping donkey knows that if you are in a trade union, you will be better off at work.

Workers know that. What they want is protection. Unions know that. What workers want is the right to organise, and they need that. The Minister of State is nodding but his script absolutely contradicts every commitment he has given to workers. He says it and then does not deliver. Workers do not need an action plan to promote collective bargaining because they know collective bargaining is good idea. Study after study shows that. What workers need is a Government on their side and the right to organise.

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