Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First, I will comment on the motion without debate on planning and development, to point out Sinn Féin's perspective. We need to give this issue more time for it to be discussed and considered fully. That is Sinn Féin's position on that motion.

I will raise the issue of firefighters. My union, SIPTU, has recommended that the Labour Court proposals be rejected. In my experience, that means the proposals will be rejected and rightly so. We have discussed the plight of our retained firefighters, who are expected to survive on a retainer of approximately €700 per month, a number of times. The proposals made by the Labour Court simply do not go anywhere close to far enough to deal with these issues. It was interesting to see the quote from Karan O'Loughlin of SIPTU who said there is not enough political will to inject the resources necessary to resolve the current impasse and create the environment for re-engagement on the broader issues in this dispute. She makes the point that essentially - I would have expected us all to understand this by now - the key issue is that they do not have enough money to survive. Their issue is one of precarity and we are losing workers as a result. Now we are facing an all-out strike this summer, which is an entirely unacceptable situation. It was compounded by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, a few weeks ago when he declared the issue could only be dealt with in the context of the next round of national pay talks. It is entirely unacceptable that the Oireachtas is going into recess leaving the State in an entirely precarious position where these essential workers are being forced to go back on strike. I call for an immediate intervention by the Minister and the Government. Everyone should agree that these workers are essential, that they get nowhere near enough pay and that we need real political will to deal with this. It is frankly a disgrace that to date the political will has not been forthcoming from this Government. I would call for a debate on the issue but we do not have time for a debate. When will the Government get its act together, understand the value of these workers and deal with the issue?