Results 4,121-4,140 of 8,245 for speaker:Bríd Smith

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare (No. 2) Bill 2019: Committee Stage (21 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Will the Minister tell us what it is about?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: I thank the witnesses for their contributions. It is important that they are here. Ms King spoke about the moral and social imperative for policymakers to ensure that the workers in Bord na Móna, and their communities, do not become collateral damage in this process. I assume she was addressing us when making those comments and she was suggesting that this committee has a moral and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: If those senior people in Bord na Móna are becoming more entrenched in their view not to go to the WRC, the Minister has spent the past eight weeks obfuscating and not telling them to do so and we have a moral and social imperative to ensure these workers are not dumped on the scrapheap, should this committee write to the Minister? Should we state that, as a result of our discussions...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: That should be one of the outcomes of today's meeting. We have repeatedly heard how crucial and urgent it is that this matter be addressed. I agree with Ms King on that. If the Minister refuses to tell Bord na Móna to engage and if the company remains resolute in its opposition to entering talks in the WRC, what course of action is left to ICTU, the unions, the workers and their...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: That is very good. Recently, members of the Cabinet visited the midlands to reassure and reassert that this was going very well and everything was lovely. What is Ms King's view of this visit? Did it achieve anything?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: There are many models from other countries. I think Mr. Goldrick-Kelly was at the NERI presentation.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: He used the model of Germany and Sweden. There are also other models his presentation did not mention. On the Plan del Carbón, I understand that the coal workers affected numerically mirror those of Bord na Móna. Some €250 million was agreed for a just transition plan in northern Spain. Did any of that come from the EU globalisation fund? I am somewhat confused about...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: It is part of the solution.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: That is it. I thank Ms King.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: I thank the Chairman, all who are in attendance and all of the witnesses for their presentations. I will start with Mr Donnellan of Bord na Móna. With all due respect, how long is Mr Donnellan with Bord na Móna?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Has he ever been involved in any just transition programme in any other workplace before?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Will he tell the committee where these were?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Were they in the carbon industry?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Mr Donnellan is familiar, then, with the whole notion of the importance of just transition for both workers and communities.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Mr. Donnellan said to us that he did not want to go to the Workplace Relations Commission because he does not want to be seen to be used as a forum to manage just transition in the future. How come then he is willing to engage with the just transition commissioner?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: It is mainly men who work in the company. Some of them have 35 or 40 years' experience with Bord na Móna as opposed to Mr. Donnellan's two. They have consistently worked in an arena where a group of unions represented their interests. I believe Mr. Donnellan is familiar with that group of unions because Bord na Móna signed a collective agreement in June or July 2019. A number of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: I am making the comparison with those who have worked there for 40 years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: Why does Bord na Móna therefore have a problem in going to the Workplace Relations Commission on the outstanding issues in that agreement which I have just listed?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Supporting a Just Transition: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2019)

Bríd Smith: I may be wrong and I do not have a trade union official sitting beside me to advise me. My information is that the agreement that was signed in June was broken by Bord na Móna when it laid off 150 workers in Mount Dillon. That was not part of the collective agreement that was signed. Once they were laid off, Bord na Móna was immediately into a disputatious situation. In the...