Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I request that the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, come into the House to intervene in a dispute between Roscommon County Council management and the Fórsa trade union. There are now two days of strike action taking place every Tuesday and Thursday in Roscommon which is very disruptive. The matter has been before the Workplace Relations Commission seven times and has been the subject of two Labour Court hearings and three clarifications. I am told by Fórsa that Roscommon County Council is the only local authority in which flexible leave is banned. This concession applied to Fórsa members in Roscommon for 17 years, as it did in all other local authorities. According to the trade union, the business cases for granting flexibility leave cannot have disappeared overnight.

It is not our responsibility, as Members of the Oireachtas, to get involved in industrial disputes. I suggest that the Leader communicate with the Minister responsible, with a view to asking Mr. Kieran Mulvey, who was involved in labour relations for 25 years until his retirement in 2016, to arbitrate in this dispute as a last resort. Mr. Mulvey was the head of the Labour Relations Commission, now the Workplace Relations Commission. He is also from Roscommon and he and I were both brought up in Roscommon Town. There has been a breakdown in communications between the trade union in question and management and an independent outside expert should be brought in to resolve the matter as it is causing major disruption to the people in County Roscommon who are affected by the withdrawal of labour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is also difficult for the staff who are protesting and on strike today. These matters should be resolved. Over the years, there have been many good negotiations, resulting in the Haddington Road and other agreements. I hope an intervention will be made sooner rather than later.