Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Senator Fitzgerald's points are true; we are certainly living in difficult times. People hold different views on the strike, but they should listen closely to what is being said. We should welcome the courageous stance taken in statements by leaders of the public sector unions in recent days. However, it sticks in my throat to hear calls for social solidarity from certain people. Recently I heard the leader of the IBEC group on television. That is the person who represents the six main banks, the people who brought us to the financial crisis. She said we should look to them to lead us out of the crisis, but they are the people who brought us to it. Somebody should remind her that people in Cork who could not get drinking water for the last two weeks had to go to her members in order to be charged €5 or €6 for bottled water. If that is the social solidarity promised by IBEC, there is no future for this country. However, we can listen to what is being said by the trade union movement leaders. They have to be courageous in their stand, must ensure they make the hard choices in terms of fairness and recognise that a pragmatic approach is required. The Government needs to make savings of €4 billion, an issue which must be delivered; therefore, hard choices will have to be made.

With regard to the announcement of a strike next week, it is very important in such circumstances that everybody recognises choices, including the choices to strike, stay at work or agree to difficult decisions. One must agree on the options to make the choices. There is a deal that can be done. There is no doubt that if we proceed with fairness and pragmatism, we can certainly move forward.

The attitude of the Ministers over recent days to the choice to be made in these difficult times has been quite admirable. They showed an understanding of where people stood although they were opposed to the strike. I spoke to people from different unions and backgrounds who were picketing yesterday and discovered that they know where the world is at. There are ways to do business. The Government must reduce the cost and size of the public sector and do so in a creative, fair, pragmatic and courageous way. By doing so, we can make progress. Let us not listen to the Pharisees of IBEC who are trying to lead us down the road from which we came and who are looking back to the future. There is no salvation from those who created this difficulty.