Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

If Senator Craughwell is not interested in listening to me, I will stop talking but I am trying to answer the questions as honestly as I can. I do so through the Chair and try not to be heckled. I could not present proposals to this House to say that the emergency is over, that FEMPI is ended and that I must find said €2.2 billion. In fact, it would be more than €2.2 billion because it would be €2.2 billion plus 15 million hours of additional work for which I would have to compensate or lose it. What services would I cut? How many teachers would I get rid of to fund that? It would be impossible to do it in one fell swoop. I am finding an orderly path and I did not invent it. I negotiated it.

This is the most important thing I am going to say. This is an agreement negotiated with the public sector unions and that is the way the business of the State operates. We, as good employers, talk to the representatives of public sector unions. Senator Healy Eames wants me to say that is fine, those who want to do it can do it and those who do not want to do it are to get all the benefits without having to work the hours or do anything else. That is the not the way an agreement works. Members vote, the majority of ICTU determines it and the public sector committee of ICTU then agrees it or not. The public sector committee of ICTU formally notified me that congress, which is the representative body we recognise, had accepted these proposals. Let me be clear about this: the Government and I will honour to the letter every agreement - the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements as well as the Lansdowne Road agreement - that is in place. No union needs to be fearful about that.