Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I second Senator Fitzgerald's motion calling for an amendment to the Order of Business, to have the Minister for Foreign Affairs in here today. It is an urgent matter. Cycling in here today I met some of the many people who had been queuing all morning outside the Passport Office. They were outside it, as it happens, at 1.30 p.m. today because of a bomb scare. There has also been a flood, apparently, machines broken and disbelief, anger, frustration and great distress being caused to many people whose holidays have been cancelled or who have missed important business appointments, jobs and a great deal of money as a result of the delays. I add that the Labour Party leader, Deputy Gilmore, has asked for the CPSU to suspend its industrial action. I also believe, as Senator O'Toole has said, there is immense frustration among the low paid public sector workers who have seen their pay cut twice in the past year by the Government. They have seen the Government allow negotiations with the unions to break down at the eleventh hour. There is immense frustration and anger among those low paid public sector workers whose concerns also need to be taken on board.

While the action of the public sector unions is not gaining them a great deal of support among the public and the strategy needs to be examined, their objectives are very understandable. We need to hear from the Government what it intends to do to ensure this chaos does not worsen and that the thousands of people who have been disadvantaged - the 22,000 social welfare recipients whose payments have been delayed and the 40,000 people awaiting passports - are not joined by countless others who will also suffer further disadvantage if this crisis in our industrial relations system is allowed to continue.

The Government has relied on social partnership for a long time but has now allowed it to break down. On top of the financial chaos we are seeing with regard to the banks and the failure to regulate sufficiently in the financial services sector, we are seeing a real failure of regulation at the industrial relations level. We need to have that bigger debate as well as a debate today with the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the passport crisis.

I also ask for a debate on jobs - jobs for people generally in this country on a day when we are looking at jobs for the boys among the Green Party members of the Government, and perhaps a job for the girl too, if Deputy White gets a junior Ministry.