Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir Quinn as ucht a chuid ama a roinnt liom. Obviously the debate on the Croke Park agreement is also taking place outside this Chamber. I recently met some of the business leaders and large employers in my constituency. One of them told me that the minute the Croke Park agreement was signed, sales increased but as soon as there was speculation and Ministers starting to hint about a renegotiation of the Croke Park agreement, sales plummeted. It is all about confidence and with people not knowing what is happening, it is important that confidence is restored.

Many people within the trade union movement had reservations about the Croke Park agreement in the first instance. It would be difficult to argue with the verdict at the time of Jimmy Kelly of UNITE, who said: "The agreement seeks to copper fasten this Government's misguided policy of taking money out of the real economy to prop up the very institutions that caused our economic meltdown in the first place." That is exactly what we have seen take place with the continued pawning of the future of this country to failed banks, failed bankers and the property speculators and gamblers who have brought the country to its knees economically and financially.

Despite the reservations, the majority of unions ratified the agreement, many with the attitude of better the devil you know, and it was backed by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Despite whatever flaws the agreement may contain and that its implementation from the point of view of workers depends to a great extent on the good faith of this or any future Government, it has been given the backing of the majority of organised workers. As such the Government which drafted the agreement and which exerted considerable pressure on workers to accept it is honour bound, one would think, to ensure its terms are upheld. Instead we have been hearing persistent reports that it is considering jettisoning the agreement in pursuit of even more draconian measures against workers and their families. This needs to stop.

The Government is being encouraged in this by business groups and right-wing economists who believe the solution to the economic crisis is not to deal with its source, which was the criminal and incompetent speculation and mismanagement at the top, but by driving into poverty public sector workers and other workers, including those who have been put on the dole. That would be bad enough if people were not able to see the contrast between that and the protection and feather-bedding that is still provided to the failed bankers and speculators who cry poverty while still managing to hide large amounts of wealth and enjoy the same sort of lifestyles they enjoyed when they were busy gambling away this country's wealth and future.

As my party has previously outlined, the manner in which the Government has treated public sector workers and the manner in which it is now being suggested that it abandon the Croke Park agreement proves that social partnership at the end of the day was no more than a convenience to be abandoned when it no longer suited the Government and employers. The solution to the economic crisis is not to sack tens of thousands of public sector workers or to slash their wages. They, no more than any of the rest of us, have a moral obligation to foot the bill for Anglo Irish Bank and AIB or the FitzPatricks and Fingletons. Neither is the solution, as suggested by the business organisations, to abolish the minimum wage and agreed wage rates in different sectors. Neither is it to destroy the health service, schools, public transport and other areas of public provision in order that we can pay the debts of the Government's friends.

My party is unique in rejecting the current politics of austerity and in proposing, as we will set out in our detailed budget submission, a positive way out of the crisis that will create jobs and address the financial crisis. We reject the attempt to place the onus for solving those problems on public service workers or on any other workers and in that spirit we reject any attempt to tear up an agreement with the unions. It is important to restore confidence and have certainty through strong statements that this agreement will not be torn up or renegotiated.