Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Let us start putting the money into services and restore them to a 21st century level. When the Minister of State comes to deal with employment issues, he has to do away with zero-hour contracts at the lower end of the employment scale. He must see to it that employers will engage in collective bargaining. We cannot continue to have situations like what is going on between Mandate and Dunnes Stores.A significant number of our population live in income poverty, which is the worst type of poverty in that one works for one's salary but one does not have enough to live on.

I want to see the restoration of pubic service pay. I hear people talking about productivity and I engaged in negotiating the Haddington Road agreement for two years when I was president of the Teachers Union of Ireland, and we did deals that were to die in 2016 and they will have to happen in 2016 unless the Government wants to start a war with the public service. There will be no further productivity at this point in time. We are looking for the restoration of what was taken from public servants. Before I came into this House I suffered the pain of the cuts that were imposed on the education sector. I have suffered worse pains since I was elected to the House, but that is another day's work.