Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for giving us an opportunity to address some important issues. I urge the leadership of the House to try to facilitate debate here on the very significant economic fallout from Covid. This issue is raising concerns in every community. In the constituency I know best, Clare, there are very many issues impacting on the lives of people, most particularly the decision by the management and the board of Shannon Airport to begin to address the Covid crisis on the shoulders of workers. Overnight they wrote to workers offering redundancies, reduced numbers and terms of sabbatical from work. This kind of approach is not what is needed. It was recognised that the Covid crisis would have a negative impact on all sectors of the economy, and the Government appealed to companies right across the board to try to work together to hold employees within their embrace until we got to the other side of this. We will get to the other side of the fallout from Covid but we cannot do so on the shoulders or the heads of workers, or by trampling on the hopes of workforces throughout the country. This is particularly disappointing given that management and the board at Shannon Airport have failed since separation to address the issues there, failed to generate more traffic and failed in their effort to ensure that Shannon Airport acts as a driver for the entire region. What we need is a debate in this House. I request that the leadership of the House bring before the House the Minister with responsibility for transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister with responsibility for tourism in order that we can have a proper debate. We should not expect the workers in those areas under pressure to take all the pain when it is a much wider issue that needs to be addressed.