Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

We accept today's Order of Business. I wish to take this opportunity to put on record my view, and I suspect the view of the vast majority of the travelling public who have had to witness it, on the wildcat industrial action over the past two days by certain elements who allegedly want to support public transport. It is unacceptable that the travelling public can be dealt with like this. People arrived at train stations yesterday unaware of this action. Will the management of Iarnród Éireann indicate why people were not informed? Given the fact that it knew this situation was at hand and that it was forewarned of it, why was no public information given to people who wanted to use the rail service yesterday?

That is unacceptable from the management of Iarnród Éireann but it is equally unacceptable for the unions involved to take out their difficulties in terms of training for these new trains on the travelling public. This is a reminder of an industrial age we hoped had long since gone. There are implications in this for the current partnership talks. This is a clear breach of the existing pay agreement and the associated commitments within that agreement.

I ask the Government to provide time in the House, possibly today or tomorrow, so that everyone can put their views on this issue on the record. We have made a major investment in rail transport in recent years. The State is now subsidising the service to a significant degree in order to bring it up from the Third World service we had for many years. We now find that the main actors want to put all of that to one side. It is not acceptable and I wish to use this opportunity to speak on behalf of the vast majority of people who want to get on with their business without this kind of discommoding of service.