Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I am the second one. When I was involved in the teaching union, it was quite strong as many difficult cases were arising for teachers' unions.

I remember talking to former Taoiseach Charles Haughey about the matter of social partnership. He stated that if it worked it would be beneficial but if it did not at least an attempt would have been made at it. There were many unpalatable issues. In the beginning it was a matter of placing restraints on people and hoping that we could turn the corner, which we did. However, the regime was difficult at the time. We are all forgetting that this type of social justice and social partnership goes back to the encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII, which dealt in the 19th century with social justice throughout the world.

I had forgotten how the names of the agreements were put into acronyms over the years. The Programme for National Recovery, the PNR, was the first in 1987. We gradually moved from recovery to having a better time all around. The people who spoke here today all came to the same conclusion, except perhaps for Senator O'Toole, although he may have done so also by wondering if a better way was possible of sorting out the country's situation.

Despite Senator Ross's undoubted ability to speak, which has been honed in L & Hs, etc. over the years, particularly his years in Trinity College, he still did not convince me of his argument. We know that many of the multinational companies and others are not represented by trade unions. What is he trying to tell us? I do not know. Senator Ross also discussed other issues. It was good to have a dissenting voice and another viewpoint. We cannot all be nodding our heads up and down as if a penny was being placed in a box. We all have different ways of considering these matters.

Senator McDowell is correct in stating there was a period in the mid-1990s when the social partnership process appeared to become stagnant. There was seemingly no fresh thinking in the national process of social inclusion, and it appeared that people were thinking about who could get the most from the pot over the three-year period. The inclusion of the fourth pillar was crucial.

In the beginning the process was about plain survival. The PNR was about survival as a country in economic terms and social justice did not really come into it. Interleaved in the Programme for National Recovery was the concept of whether the country survived as a sovereign nation, making up our own rules and regulations and having a full democracy. The country survived. The process progressed from this and the fourth pillar, a social pillar, was later included, after initially comprising the employers and employees, as well as the agricultural sector. The social element is not waited on breathlessly for its contribution or to see if its participation is detrimental, but it is good to have the element included. As a result, issues are considered that we would never discuss otherwise.

I agree with the idea of a ten-year programme, although I take Senator McDowell's point that it would tie the hands of future Governments, whatever their nature. I cannot foresee a Government that would not wish to continue along the path of social inclusion and social justice. A ten-year agreement may loosely tie the hands of such a Government. There would need to be a wage agreement every three years between employers and employees, and I strongly endorse such an idea.

With regard to longer-term issues, Senator Dardis spoke of pollution and environmental controls. Such matters will require a longer timespan to work through because one would work with EU legislation as well as Irish legislation and other directives. The transport issue is similar, as Transport 21 is a ten-year plan. It will take a number of years to work through. Many issues will require time for the progress of talks.

I hope these issues do not get marginalised or put on the back burner. The participants will not stand for this. We need to know this process involves more than just wages and salaries. Senator O'Toole used a potent image of an ATM machine in attempting to get the teachers' unions to participate in the partnership process, which was difficult. There was a mental image of people queuing at the ATM machine, putting in the card and money pouring out. It was not quite like that, but it was a potent image which worked eventually.

In my five years at the Department of Public Enterprise, I found in my dealings with unions that if an agreement was reached between the Government and trade unionists, everybody stuck to their word. I had many dealings with CIE, taking in agreements and negotiations. Order almost always came from chaos. We all speak of our own experiences, as it gives a flavour and texture to what we say. At that time, a person would have had to work overtime to earn a decent wage in Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann or Bus Átha Cliath, which was wrong. People had to work six and seven days a week to get a decent wage. We aimed to find a way by which an employee could get a decent wage within a normal week's work. After negotiating through a particular strike, decent wage structures were achieved for CIE. It is one of the good memories I have of the Department and working with registered trade unionists, who went about their business of making agreements and getting better terms for their fellow workers.

There was no reason this should not have come about. Why should a person work seven days a week to get a decent wage? These were the conditions in the company nonetheless. I have good memories of the achievement, as the agreements reached were adhered to. One could go home from the Department at the end of the process and say that the agreement would be followed up.

There were similar conditions in Iarnród Éireann, and its employees had to work almost every day to get a decent wage. By the time I left the Department we had corrected this situation. The employees were on proper wages, neither too low nor too high, and had proper terms of employment. The terms of employment were of great importance. These were my main experiences of dealing with unions, and I found management to be similar within the same company. With regard to trade unions and management, people stick to their word and a bargain made is adhered to.

Many issues such as those surrounding wages will continue throughout the three-year duration of the talks. We will hear angry, abrasive words but will cope with that. Microphones will be thrust under people's noses outside Government Buildings on Merrion Street and there will be long faces among those who are exercised by the issues but we will continue. The process provides a mechanism, however, whereby any embryonic breakdown in a particular area can be referred to Mr. McCarthy's implementation body in the Department of the Taoiseach to adjudicate, as was the case when it seemed there would be a dispute at An Post prior to Christmas, threatening to throw the entire Christmas arrangements for post into disarray. The implementation body, a mini-version of what will be set up in Dublin Castle, intervened and the parties worked through the problem.

I wish the talks well and I am pleased they are under way. I again proclaim myself a socialist.