Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was slightly late for the Order of Business this morning because I was attending a very powerful presentation by four trade unions: SIPTU, the Communications Workers Union, the Financial Services Union and Mandate. They have just launched their respect at work document, which is called Union Busting: An Inconvenient Truth. The document details something I always knew to be true but it details it on the back of hard survey information. It is that union busting is not just present in Ireland but extremely commonplace. It causes trauma and huge unfairness to workers. I will run through some of the stats briefly. A total of 42% of respondents said the employer victimised union activists; 40% said the employer discouraged workers from joining a union; 40% said the employer used management consultants to avoid dealing with the union; and 23% said the employer dismissed union activists so one in four of the people surveyed was either fired or knew someone who was fired just for wanting to join a trade union.

The reality is that this country continues to be a laggard, completely out of step with the European Union and our colleagues in Europe, in not having the right to collective bargaining. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have had 100 years to legislate for that and they have refused to do so. We are, therefore, completely out of step with Europe.

One of the stories that really shocked me was about an employee from the ECAS. I had not heard of the ECAS before. It is a subsidiary of BT and deals with the 999 service here. I did not know it was outsourced. I do not know if people appreciate that. Our 999 service is outsourced to a company in receipt of State funding that refuses to recognise trade unions, refuses to attend the Labour Court and told this particular activist that she could go fold jumpers in Penneys if she did not like the work. She was driven out of her job. She was at the presentation giving personal testimony. Another person there could not be identified because he was afraid of being blacklisted. He works in the retail sector.

There is a massive issue, and this is connected to the fact that we have one of the largest proportions of low-paid workers in any state in Europe. That number, by the way, is 400,000 low-paid workers. It is directly connected to the fact that we are an outlier and we do not have the right to collective bargaining. The very simple ask from these unions is that we build in protections, that we legislate for protections for shop stewards in order that they cannot be fired simply for being a member of a union, and that we transpose the minimum wage directive in a really strong way to build in protections, for example, to give unions the right to access to workplaces. There is nothing radical about this. The rest of Europe already has this. Other member states have transposed the directive. I am worried that the Government has said there is no need for any new legislation as regards transposing this directive. Not legislating would be a huge mistake and a huge failing to all those low-paid workers.

I would ask for an urgent debate. Clearly, we are not going to get it because we are finishing up the week after next, but this has to be central and will be central. The Government will find that these unions will put this front and centre in the coming general election campaign, just as they did with the Stop 67 campaign in the previous general election. We need to be clear where we stand on this. Sinn Féin is very clear. We stand for workers' rights. We stand for the right to collective bargaining. We stand for the strong transposition of the EU minimum wage directive.