Telecommunications Dispute: Motion

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Faulkner)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves the efforts of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to bring the telecommunications dispute to an end.

Let me say first that the Government and I are fully conscious of the difficulties being experienced by the public as a result of the protracted disruption of the telephone and telex service and of the importance of bringing the industrial action to an end as soon as possible. I need hardly say that those who are suffering hardship and loss as a result of either the non-availability of telecommunications services or unsatisfactory service are, quite rightly, not slow in bringing that fact to my notice or to the notice of other members of the Government. There is nobody more conscious than the Government of how essential it is to have this dispute ended and nobody more anxious or concerned than the Government to see that it is brought to an end.

But in our anxiety to have normal services restored the Government and I must continually bear in mind that the settlement has to be one which will ensure the continued use of orderly means for resolving claims and problems in the civil service and which will not contain the seeds of much greater disorder. A settlement on any other basis would have the most serious consequences, and would clearly not be in the interests of the public or, indeed, of the staff. The Government are concerned to secure a settlement that is fair to all concerned and ask for no more than that. Proposals for a settlement on this basis have been made on a number of occasions; they have been accepted by me but have not unfortunately resulted in an ending of the industrial action.

The most recent of the efforts to resolve this dispute followed the intervention of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions early last month. Representatives of the executive council of the congress had discussions with representatives of the Irish Post Office Engineering Union and of the other unions representing the 21,000 staff in the Department. Following this they had extensive discussions with the Minister for Labour and myself, and arising from all these consultations, the congress representatives formulated proposals for a return to work.

The congress proposals provided for the lifting of all suspensions, the immediate re-employment of all staff laid off, the ending of industrial action and no victimisation of staff for participation in the industrial action.

The proposals provided also for the immediate resumption of discussions on the union's reorganisation claim under the chairmanship of a mediator to be nominated by the chairman of the Labour Court. They provided that staff should not be instructed to do work involving changes in work practices or procedures claimed to be significant and likely to have a bearing on a productivity agreement until such time as discussions had taken place under the mediator; and, where changes were identified in those discussions as significant, arrangements should be made to have them quantified and taken specifically into account in the settlement of the reorganisation claim. I should explain that it has been claimed by the union from the outset of this dispute that what was primarily at issue was that the Department were eroding the basis of the reorganisation claim or productivity claim, as it is commonly known, by introducing changes that involved increased productivity and that if the Department continued to do this there would be no scope for supporting their claim on a productivity basis.

As will be evident from what I have said, the congress proposals tackled this on two fronts. First, they provided for the introduction of a mediator nominated by the chairman of the Labour Court to preside over the discussions on the reorganisation claim. The injection of an outsider with no brief for either side and who would have experience of negotiations of this kind and could be expected to see ways around difficulties should certainly prove helpful. He could be relied on to ensure that consideration of the claim was pressed forward to an early conclusion. Secondly, changes claimed to be significant which could reasonably be expected to have a bearing on the productivity claim would be identified and, where it was accepted in discussions under the mediator that they were signified, the resultant productivity savings would be evaluated and taken specifically into account in an agreement. This disposed, therefore, of any grounds the staff might have had for fears in regard to their re-organisation claim and should have removed it as an area of dispute.

In accordance with the election manifesto, the Government were committed to undertaking a review of staff rules and regulations in the Department with a view to promoting better labour relations. I had set up a departmental group last October to undertake a fundamental reappraisal of staff rules and regulations. In January last the staff organisations were invited at the departmental conciliation council to put forward their views on the changes they would wish to have made and their suggestions in regard to how staff-management relations in the Department could be improved. The congress representatives regarded it as important that an outsider should also be introduced to assist with this examination in the light of his experience of practice in industry and other organisations. Their proposals provided, therefore, that the discussions that had taken place should continue to be carried out at the departmental conciliation council but under a mediator nominated by the chairman of the Labour Court.

Again, Deputies who followed the course of events in this dispute will be aware that there have been allegations that what were described as archaic rules and practices were responsible, in part at any rate, for the staff action in this instance. The course of action now proposed under the congress proposals should ensure that this examination will proceed quickly and should enable any staff complaints in relation to these to be considered fully.

Thirdly, congress proposed that, in relation to specific grievances, as distinct from claims for improvements in pay and conditions, a mediation committee consisting of an equal number of union and departmental representatives presided over by a mediator also nominated by the chairman of the Labour Court should be established as a further step in the existing grievance procedure. This committee would deal not only with specific grievances that the union said were causing concern at present but would also deal with grievances and problems in the future. I ask the House to note that on three different occasions mediators were taken in from outside.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Would it be possible for the Minister to circulate copies of his speech to Members?

Mr. O'Donnell

It is normal practice to circulate copies of such a speech.

Mr. Faulkner

I can certainly have copies circulated but it is not normal practice to circulate copies of speeches like this.

These comprehensive proposals were, as I have said, formulated by representatives of the executive council of congress only after detailed consultations with the Post Office Engineering Union and with other unions representing staff in the Department as well as with the Minister for Labour and myself. The congress representatives recognised, quite rightly, as one would expect from men of their vast experience in the industrial relations sphere, that a solution to the present dispute could not be found without taking into account the impact which proposals for a solution might have on other unions in the Post Office, all of whom are parties to the same agreed negotiation machinery as are indeed the civil service generally for most of the negotiation arrangements involved. The congress representatives included the congress president, Mr. Mulhall; the vice-president, Mr. O'Sullivan; the immediate past president, Mr. Griffin; the general secretary, Mr. Roberts; the assistant general secretary, Mr. Nevin; the industrial relations officer, Mr. McGrath; the general president of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, Senator Kennedy; the general secretary of the Workers' Union of Ireland, Mr. Cardiff; the general secretary of the Post Office Workers' Union, Mr. Quinlan and the general secretary of the Civil Service Executive Union, Mr. Murphy. All of these are men with long experience of industrial relations and occupying key positions in their own organisations. The fact that they were prepared to strongly recommend the proposals they had formulated for acceptance by an affiliated union is sufficient guarantee that the proposals fully safeguarded the interests of the members of the Irish Post Office Engineering Union and provided a means of resolving the dispute satisfactorily.

The proposals covered all the areas of alleged staff dissatisfaction and, indeed, dealt not just simply with resolving the present problems but also, provided an improved framework for settling industrial relations difficulties in the future. Anyone who studies the proposals and the complaints of staff dissatisfaction could be in no doubt that the congress representatives had briefed themselves fully on the issues. I should add that this was the second occasion on which the congress representatives intervened. They had given generously of their time to this dispute previously in November last and were, therefore, fully aware of all the difficulties and problems. I accepted the congress proposals and I remain prepared to implement them to the full, not only in the letter but in the spirit also.

Deputies will be aware that the ICTU proposals were put to a ballot of their membership by the Irish Post Office Engineering Union. The ballot resulted in a narrow majority against acceptance by the 4,500 of 6,500 members who voted. I understand that the proposals were accepted by 31 of the 44 union branches but that all six Dublin branches and seven other branches voted against. Naturally, I am most disturbed that the proposals formulated by the representatives of the executive council of the congress who gave many hours of their time in preparing and discussing them and of whose efforts I cannot speak too highly, should not have been accepted by the union members. I cannot, of course, say why individuals voted against the proposals but there are certain factors which I believe must have contributed to this result.

First, and this should in ordinary course have been a matter of surprise since the proposals were so strongly recommended by congress, the union executive made no recommendation to the union members regarding the proposals formulated by a body to which they are affiliated. The reason for this can, I suggest, be found in the internal politics and divisions within the union executive to which I shall refer again. Despite the executive's decision not to make any recommendation, nevertheless certain members of the union executive campaigned strongly for a rejection of the proposals. Indeed, one such executive member was reported in the news media subsequently as describing the proposals as being plausible on the surface but when examined in greater detail as being riddled with catch phrases and full of potential dangers for the union. It is hard to believe that such criticism of the work of the prestigious men who formulated the proposals could have been made by a member of an affiliated union but he was so reported and such criticism if voiced during the balloting could not but have affected the outcome of the ballot.

It was, of course, ludicrous to suggest that the members of the Executive Council of the congress who strongly recommended these proposals to the union executive either did not understand what they were doing or attempted to so mislead a constituent of congress as to foist on them proposals that were full of potential dangers for the union. Such criticism could only be partially excused if due to a total lack of understanding of the proposals. For my part, the congress proposals represent a comprehensive and reasonable basis for ending the industrial action once and for all and they go further in so far as they provide not just simply for dealing with the current problems but future ones as well. They are, I would stress, the independent proposals of congress, not my proposals.

It might be helpful at this stage if I were to retrace briefly the course of events in this dispute. The industrial trouble is, I should say, a problem I inherited from the previous Government but I am not making any political capital of this. I am stating it as a historical fact. The trouble began in May 1977, in my predecessor's time when some members of the union, against the instructions of their executive, refused to hand up departmental records in breach of their conditions of employment. Following the union's annual conference and changes in the union executive, the staff action which was in breach of the agreed means of resolving problems was made official. Since then, industrial action has continued in an unbroken series of strikes and other acts of indiscipline which have involved groups of staff for different periods in many centres. Sometimes those actions were official and sometimes unofficial.

The recent proposals by the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have not been the only attempt to bring this industrial action to an end. In August, the Steering Committee of the Employer-Labour Conference made recommendations for a resumption of normal work which both the union, executive and I accepted. However, the union did not honour their acceptance and the industrial action continued. As Deputies probably know, the Steering Committee consists of representatives of the Federated Union of Employers and other employer bodies and of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions under the chairmanship of Professor Basil Chubb. In November, arrangements for a return to normal work were again formulated following intensive discussions which I had with representatives of the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. All aspects of the dispute were discussed in detail at that time with the result that the congress representatives already had a first-hand knowledge of the problems when they involved themselves in the dispute again last month.

Briefly, these recommendations and arrangements for settlement of the dispute provided, like the recent congress proposals, that the Department would lift suspensions, that the union would cease industrial action, that the union would undertake that the staff would carry out instructions and that any claims, problems or proposals would be processed speedily through the agreed negotiating machinery. I would like to stress here that both the Employer-Labour Conference and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recognised the need for settled procedures for the processing of claims, problems and proposals, in an orderly way in a public utility, such as the telecommunications service. I accepted the proposals in both instances and I honoured them. The union executive also accepted them but did not honour them. In accordance with the recommendations of the Steering Committee of the Employer-Labour Conference, I lifted suspensions and restored the suspended men to duty on the basis of the union executive undertaking that, as provided for in the recommendations, the staff would carry out instructions. When, however, the staff were asked to do the work which the union had undertaken they would do, they refused again, on the instructions of the union executive.

Eventually, it was only after they had to be suspended again that most of them did the work, but some continued to refuse. The staff response to the Irish Congress of Trade Union's proposals in November was even less satisfactory. Some staff did not seek a resumption of work at all, but almost all those who did refused again to carry out instructions despite the undertaking given on their behalf by the union executive that they would do so. From this brief recital of facts Deputies will have some appreciation of the difficulties in bringing this industrial action to an end.

Unofficial industrial action was still continuing last January in three centres —the Central Telephone Exchange, Distillery Road in Dublin and Letter-kenny, although in the case of staff at the Central Telephone Exchange the staff were on duty and drawing pay, but refusing to carry out instructions.

The stated grounds for industrial action have shifted many times during the course of this whole dispute. When one issue was settled another was started. But the alleged issues on which the industrial action is being taken could not, on any rational basis, be the real reasons.

When this trouble started in May last, the alleged cause of the staff grievance was the slowness of the Department in reaching a productivity agreement. As I explained previously in the House, the Department have been more than willing to enter into a productivity agreement. In negotiations at the conciliation council in 1976, under the conciliation and arbitration scheme informal agreement in principle was reached on many features of such an agreement; the Department had suggested that 1975 be taken as the base year for purposes of measuring productivity which would give the staff the benefit of any productivity improvements that might result from developments taking place between them and the time an agreement is entered into; the Department had also suggested a tentative introduction date for a productivity agreement.

The Department are also on record as stating that there is ample scope for considerable benefits to the staff in such an agreement. The telecommunications service is in a period of rapid growth and the Department are more than anxious to conclude an agreement under which opportunities for increased efficiency could be availed of to the benefit of the service and of the public and under which the staff would stand to benefit substantially. In fact, one of the unfortunate results of this industrial action from the staff point of view is that, apart from other losses they could have all been earning more pay for the past year or so if the union had returned to the negotiating table and concluded a productivity agreement instead of having recourse to industrial action.

I might add again that the recent congress proposals dealt not merely with the productivity issues but also with other individual issues that were raised by the union.

On 3 January, the executive of the union wrote to assure me that all the industrial actions taking place at that time were unofficial, stating the staff concerned had not gone along with the executive's requests in these instances. Yet I learned later from their own union journal that the union executive were financing these unofficial actions. Incidentally, at the same time as the union executive were writing to me in this vein some members of the executive were reported in the newspapers as threatening to bring the Department, and might I stress that is the community, to their knees, and to reduce the telecommunications services to chaos, and that the basic objective was complete capitulation by the Department.

At the end of January, what was described as a "truce offer" was made by the union. Effectively what the union asked for was that the agreements which had been negotiated through the Employer-Labour Conference and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and all the agreed negotiating machinery which, as I said earlier, applies not only to the engineering staff but also to all the other staff in the Post Office and to the civil service as a whole, should be set aside and instead that the demands of groups engaged in unofficial indusstrial actions, which the executive themselves had stated were in defiance of their own instructions, should be acceded to. That proposal could hardly have been intended to be taken seriously and, in my reply, I invited the union executive instead to honour their previous undertakings, thus allowing suspensions to be lifted. The union reaction to this was to notify that they proposed to call out on strike personnel in key areas with the declared objective of crippling the service. These personnel were duly withdrawn with effects which I will describe later. They were, I should point out, withdrawn from areas where at the time the Department had taken no action.

I mentioned earlier that the reasons advanced in support of the industrial action could not be the real ones. The real reasons are to be found in divisions within the union executive where some members have simply refused to accept the decisions of the executive, and have campaigned openly against them, as they did in walking out from an executive council meeting at which the Employer-Labour Conference recommendations were being considered and, more recently, in advocating rejection of the recent congress proposals. I dealt with the evidence for these divisions and with their effects on industrial peace in the Department in some detail in a previous debate in the House and I do not propose, therefore, to rake over this ground again. It is not for me to ascribe motives for these divisions. I do not know what the groups who sponsored the industrial action at those centres where it was taking place last January and who continued it in defiance of the union executive hoped to gain by the course they adopted. Neither can I understand why the union executive subsequently joined in industrial action in support of dissident branches acting in defiance of the executive's own instructions or why they embarked on a course of action designed to cripple the service and to bring the Department—as I said before, that is the community—to their knees.

It has been said in an attempt to explain the executive's stance in this matter that it is not unusual to find that the members of an executive are not in complete unanimity. But I want to emphasise that what has been happening within the union executive has not been normal. I can readily accept that there would be a diversity of views within a union executive but it would be reasonable to expect that when a decision is reached by a majority it would be accepted and implemented by the executive as a whole. The opposite has happened here; the majority decisions have not been accepted by the minority and the minority have campaigned to have the majority decisions set aside. This has been at the root of the failure to have this dispute resolved earlier. Indeed, the editor of the union's own journal, The Relay, found it necessary to comment on this matter when in an editorial in the November/December 1977 issue of the journal he stated as follows:

Within our own union, during 1977, we have witnessed the results of terrible bitterness at national executive level. For months past the friction has been obvious for all to see and unfortunately it has done nothing to enhance the reputation of the IPOEU or to improve its functioning.

As I have said, I urged the union early in February to end the industrial action in accordance with the arrangements previously made with the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The response of the union was a decision to call out key men in the Central Telephone Exchange and in one of the telex exchanges. Two technicians were withdrawn from the Central Telephone Exchange and 13 from the telex exchange in pursuit of the stated objective of crippling the telecommunications services. The withdrawal of the men would not, of itself, have resulted in a crippling of the services, but in practice the telephone trunk service worsened rapidly over the following few days to a point where approximately half of the trunk circuits from Dublin were out of service. This was in a situation where all but two of the maintenance technician staff were on duty in the Central Telephone Exchange. The technicians concerned were reassigned to other duties on 11 February. Some senior management staff moved in at the weekend, found that much equipment had been disabled and began to restore it with a large measure of success. On 13 February, some technicians staged a sit-in at the exchange and a court order had to be obtained to get them out. When the technicians left the building the telephone and telex trunk system serving Dublin nationally and internationally was found to have almost totally collapsed. Management staff again moved in and have been restoring disabled equipment since then.

There were instances of interference in all areas of the Central Telephone Exchange, over 40 instances in all. The interference took a number of forms. Power and other essential supforms. Power and other essential supplies were disconnected by the removal of fuses and by the misoperation of control switches. Controls were maladjusted so that equipment could not function. Equipment of the plugin type was positioned in such a way that it could not function. Wires were broken off within the equipment. There were several instances where hundreds of trunk circuits were out of service. In switching/ signalling equipment, wiring was found to have been inserted between circuits so as to render them useless. Essential records were missing from the exchange. Electro-mechanical devices were maladjusted and in some cases seriously damaged. The overall effect of the interference was to make it virtually impossible to make STD calls in to or out of Dublin or for operators to dial calls through Dublin. More recently, when staff in the second telex exchange in Dublin went on strike, the exchange was found to have been put out of commission by the application of colourless nail varnish to electrical contacts thereby immobilising the exchange.

Let me say that I am not recounting this matter with any sense of pleasure or with the slightest desire to score a point. On the contrary I record it with very great regret and I am doing so simply to put the full facts before the House. I want to make it clear that I do not believe that the great majority of the staff would regard this type of interference with other than abhorrence, but it would appear that a small group would be prepared to go to desperate lengths to bring about disruption.

The factor which I believe is responsible for this dispute continuing so long is that certain members of the union executive appear to be interested in something other than an honourable settlement of this dispute. Opportunities for such a settlement were provided in the recommendations of the Steering Committee of the Employer-Labour Conference and in the arrangements formulated twice by the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions but were not availed of. The conclusion must be reached that those within the union who have been claiming that they would bring the Department to their knees and create chaos in the services and who insist that nothing less than total capitulation by the Department will satisfy them have succeeded in persuading many less well-informed than themselves to continue the campaign of industrial action. It is important that there should be a full realisation and appreciation by the public generally of what is involved in this dispute and why it has dragged on so long and caused so much hardship.

I mentioned earlier that I was not making any political capital out of the fact that this dispute started before I assumed responsibility for the Department. This dispute is, in my view, far too serious to take advantage of it for political purposes. However, I must record, with regret, that there are Deputies about whom I cannot say the same, whose untimely and unhelpful public comments have done nothing but delay the ending of this dispute. I was particularly shocked by the unwarranted criticism by Deputy O'Leary, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, of the recent proposals by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions which he described as not dealing with the real issues in the dispute.

The Government and I have been called upon by businessmen, business associations, doctors and many others to bring this industrial action to an end at once. I can well understand and sympathise with these calls. Those who make them are no doubt frustrated and angered over this whole business but there is, I regret, no magic wand that the Government or I can wave that will bring this action to an immediate end. I explained this in some detail to representatives of the Associated Chambers of Commerce on Monday last and I cannot do better than quote from their own statement issued after the meeting. They said:

Having heard the Minister's view, the Association is satisfied that no stone is being left unturned by him and his officials both to effect an improvement in the service and to achieve a settlement.

The only courses open for an ending of the dispute are a resumption of normal work on a reasonable basis acceptable to both sides, or a capitulation by one side or the other. As I have outlined earlier, various recommendations and proposals have been made for the ending of this industrial action on a basis that was fair both to the staff and to the Department and also consistent with the Department's position as a supplier of public services to the community. These did not, regrettably, bring about a return to normality for the reasons I have already given.

As regards capitulation by one side or the other, I have not asked the union to capitulate and the recent proposals by the congress, which I accepted, certainly did not seek a capitulation by the union. Is it being asked of the Department that they should capitulate and yield to the demands of a minority group within one of the Post Office unions? If concessions of the kind they require were to be made, the users of Post Office services, and indeed users of services provided by the State generally, could expect to be deprived of those services every time an individual or group felt aggrieved, for whatever reason. It is essential in a public service that there must be orderly means of resolving claims and problems. The Steering Committee of the Employer-Labour Conference and the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions both recognised this, as indeed I think would any person who stops to consider it. An orderly way of resolving problems does not mean that the staff surrender their position in any way; it simply involves a recognition of their position as providing a public service and acting accordingly. That is what the existing negotiation machinery agreed with all the unions in the Post Office and in the civil service generally provides, and the changes suggested in the recent congress proposals would have preserved that concept. I believe the users of the telecommunications services are conscious of the serious implications of abandoning the orderly means of resolving problems and of making concessions to unwarranted industrial action and would not wish me to do this, badly hit though they are by the present strike.

Some Opposition Deputies and others were critical of the fact that I did not agree to meet the union recently when they asked me to do so, and seem to suggest that such a meeting was the panacea for all ills. There is, of course, no basis for such an assumption. On the contrary, to negotiate with the union in present circumstances in breach of the agreed negotiations machinery would be open encouragement to every disgruntled individual or group to take the law into their own hands and to disrupt public services, and would result in an intolerable situation for civil service unions generally.

The fact is that to negotiate with the union while they are engaged in industrial action would be in breach of the agreed scheme of conciliation and arbitration for the civil service, to which they and all other unions in the civil service are a party. If I were to condone a breach in this instance, then of course, the scheme would have been broken by both sides and the implications of that would be far-reaching.

The industrial action is also a breach of the arrangements which have been agreed by all sides for processing grievances in the Department, and if these arrangements are to be set aside for one organisation and negotiations are to take place outside them, the way is being opened for similar action by every individual or group in the Department, with consequences that I spelled out earlier. Those outside the union calling for such a meeting, and I want to stress this, have failed to realise or have chosen to ignore what the Steering Committee of the Employer-Labour Conference and the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recognised, and that is, that is an organisation providing public services, as the Post Office does, it is essential to have an orderly means for resolving claims and problems and that such means cannot be set aside at the whim of one group. I have indicated already that the Government and I are committed to maintaining orderly means of negotiation in the interests of the public, the civil service unions and of the staff themselves.

It is also the position, as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recognised, that any one organisation in the Post Office cannot be treated differently from the others, and congress formulated its proposals for a return to work only following consultations with all the staff organisations in the Post Office. I want to stress again that the congress formulated their proposals following discussions not only with the union involved and with the Minister for Labour and myself, but following discussions with all the staff organisations in the Post Office. It was for these reasons when the union executive asked me last week to meet them to discuss settlement proposals that I offered to meet the congress representatives for clarification discussions. I trust that in the light of what I have said, it will be accepted that I acted reasonably and responsibly and in the only helpful way open to me. I might add that immediately there is a return to work I will be glad to meet the union executive.

Incidentally, before criticising me for not meeting the union recently, Opposition Deputies would have found if they had checked, that when they themselves were in office and when the Irish Post Office Engineering Union took official strike action, the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs did not meet the union representatives and I object to Opposition Deputies now attempting to force me to adopt a stance they did not take when in office themselves.

The Government's interest and my interest in this whole matter lie in the earliest restoration of services that is compatiable—and this is the key point— with maintenance of agreed, orderly negotiating procedures in the Post Office and in the civil service generally. I want to repeat that it is my firmly held view and that of the Government that it would not be in the interests of anyone, either the Department's customers or the staff, if the Department adopted a policy of seeking the restoration of services without any concern for the terms of settlement of the dispute.

Such an outcome would mean that any group having the power to inconvenience a significant section of the public could hope to coerce that section into supporting any of their demands, however unreasonable. That would have the most adverse and far reaching consequences for the public service as a whole, not just the Post Office, in terms of continuity of services, costs and efficiency. In stating that agreed, orderly negotiating procedures must be maintained I want to underline the fact that neither the Government nor I am opposed to changing the existing procedures but such changes must come by way of agreement with all the staff unions concerned and not from the disruptive action by a minority within one union.

Some members of the Opposition have, as I said earlier, been vocal in calling on me to settle this dispute. I want to put it to them now to say if they are advocating that I should make concessions to industrial action designed to disrupt the agreed, orderly ways of settling problems. If they are, I would like them to say what they believe the consequences of such a course would be. Do they want Post Office services to be disrupted whenever any group of staff have a grievance, real or imaginary? That would be the consequence of what they appear to be pressing.

As I said at the outset, the Government and I are most anxious to see this dispute settled immediately on an equitable basis. The recent proposals by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions provide such a basis, and I would hope that the union executive will reconsider their position. If the union executive require any clarification or any reassurance, they should seek them from the congress and I told the union executive in a letter on 31 March that if the executive council of congress required any clarification discussions with me I would be available to them at short notice. I sincerely hope that the union executive will do this and that there will be an early resumption of work by the staff generally. I have made it clear on several occasions and now repeat it that when normal work is resumed I can be relied on to play my part in finding solutions to whatever problems the staff may have.

I feel sure that in the light of the position as set out by me the House will agree that everything possible has been done by me to bring this industrial action to an end and I therefore ask the House to support the motion that I have moved.

Mr. O'Donnell

I move the following amendment:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"regrets the inactivity of the Government in seeking a settlement in the telecommunications dispute, deplores their provocative attitudes and demands urgent action to bring about an early settlement."

Listening to the Minister's long speech—almost 45 minutes—and looking at the state of utter chaos to which the business, financial and social life of this country has been reduced by the prolonged telecommunications dispute, I must confess that I am absolutely appalled, as I am sure the country will be appalled, at the tone and content of the Minister's speech. This long speech did not contain a single new idea or new initiative or one conciliatory gesture which might help to bring about a speedy resumption of normal working conditions in the Minister's Department. From start to finish the tone of the Minister's speech was one of righteous indignation and the Minister was on the defensive. He told us about all the efforts that have been made and the chronology of the events which have taken place last May. The Minister still refuses, despite repeated requests from Deputies on this side of the House and from many spokesmen from various sectors, to make the one gesture that is now demanded, that is, to open his door and bring in representatives of the IPOEU. I do not agree with the Minister's suggestion that this would not produce a magic formula.

The Minister is in a very special position of responsibility. In the case of industrial disputes in semi-State bodies or in the private sector in which the intervention of the Department of Labour or the Minister might be called for, a refusal to intervene might be defended. The Minister in this case is the employer and I know of no circumstances in the private or semi-State sector where an employer would refuse such a request.

The Minister's speech is typical and very revealing of his attitude and approach to this issue since he assumed office. In addition, the Minister's speech and the attitude which he has adopted for several months now is typical of the industrial relations policy of the Fianna Fáil Government since they assumed office. Not very long ago in this House, prior to the Christmas recess, we had a special debate on the catastrophic result of that policy when 1,400 workers in my constituency lost their jobs in the Ferenka factory because of the failure of the Government in the field of industrial relations. I am appalled at the Minister's speech. What we are interested in is what the Minister proposes to do and what action he proposes to take. We want action, not a history of events in an attempt by the Minister to justify his own inactivity. The Minister carries the major part of the responsibility for the developments leading to the present situation; he is the employer. His approach to this dispute during recent months has been characterised by two things, inactivity and provocativeness. I am convinced that the Minister has contributed to an escalation of the situation by his inactivity and by the provocative manner in which officials of his Department have been involving themselves in this dispute.

Not merely the members of this party but most people must condemn certain industrial relations practices initiated or at least condoned by the Minister in relation to this situation. The Minister and his Department stand guilty of practices in the field of industrial relations which are reminiscent of 1913. The Minister's Department ordered officials of that Department to leave an area in which they were working and to report for duty in other centres when the Minister and the Department knew that at those centres there was an official union picket. This action by the Minister was subsequently the subject of a High Court action and I quote from the report of the Irish Independent of 22 February 1978:

The direction given to 50 Post Office technicians to report for duty to the Mill St. (Dublin) depot of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs was the result of a carefully thought-out plan by the Minister (Mr. Faulkner) and his advisers, Mr. Justice Kenny declared in the High Court yesterday.

He said he had no doubt of this and that the Minister and his advisers knew that the men would not pass the picket at Mill St. "I am convinced that by doing this they were seeking to provide themselves with a reason for suspending the plaintiffs", the Judge said.

Anybody with even the most basic elementary knowledge or appreciation of industrial relations must condemn this action by the Minister and his Department in suspending these men, having first of all directed them to report for duty in a place where there was an official picket and then suspending them for not having done so. I believe this action by the Minister has contributed more than anything else to the escalation of this dispute, to the worsening of the situation and to the continuing of the deadlock.

On the question of the suspensions, I should like to quote from another source, The Irish Press of 11 February 1978, which contained a statement from the representatives of two management unions in the Post Office calling for an urgent independent investigation of industrial relations in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The statement is:

The suspensions of many technicians over the past few days does nothing but add fuel to the industrial fire. The actions of the Department are not in any way likely to bring about a much needed atmosphere of reality into the industrial relations arena. Such an intransigent attitude makes it increasingly more difficult for negotiations to commence, and indeed is only making a bad situation worse. Only by using ordinary common sense can the matter be remedied.

I have been informed, and I chalenge the Minister to say whether it is true, that during the past weekend engineers in the Department have been directed under the threat of instant dismissal to do work normally done by technicians. I want the Minister to confirm or deny this, a matter on which I have been reliably informed. If this is so it indicates that the Minister is determined to continue with his stonewalling attitude, that he is not prepared to take extra initiative to open the door.

I and many people throughout the country have grave doubts that the Government understand the serious implications of the consequences of this prolonged dispute throughout the whole of Irish life. I have here statements by many people in different businesses, spokesmen for national organisations, which it would take me hours to quote, and I have no intention of doing so. There are several aspects of this dispute that have been giving cause for grave concern. The Government were elected because of their major priority to generate new industrial development and to promote employment. Is the Minister aware that this prolonged dispute is making the job of the IDA almost impossible? I have put the IDA first because they are of paramount importance in the field of job creation, and I will quote from The Irish Times of 11 February 1978. Under the heading “Overseas Investment is Halting”, there is the following report:

Overseas investment is grinding to a halt because of a telecommunications blackout to the outside world. The operations of Irish semi-State bodies, science, and industry based in the United Kingdom, are also being seriously disrupted. The damage to our attempts to attract industry is immeasurable, a spokesman for the Industrial Development Authority said in Birmingham on 10 February.

"Industrialists," said the spokesman, "tell us that telex communications are one of the most important aspects of their business. The image the blackout is giving of Ireland is very grave".

That is from the IDA in February. How much worse must the situation be now? The London office of Córas Tráchtála has not been able to send telex or telephone messages. Substantial contracts have been lost because potential customers have been unable to obtain immediate quotations from Irish firms. The IDA spokesman quoted in The Irish Times article, continued:

Overseas offices of Córas Tráchtála have been sending urgent messages to their London office in an attempt to communicate with Dublin.

The same situation obtains in the Irish embassies abroad. I could go on to quote at length in relation to this. If the Minister would not mind ceasing his conversation with his colleague, I want to draw his attention to another aspect of this dispute which should be causing him grave concern. In addition to being Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, he is also responsible for tourism and transport. In the past ten days he received a submission from the National Tourism Council indicating the almos impossible circumstances and conditions in which the tourism and travel industries are compelled to work. I know of tour operators and travel agents in various parts of the country who have staff in residence in Dublin hotels during the past five or six weeks to enable messages to be sent up and down by road daily. I know of firms—I am sure the two Ministers sitting on the other side must be aware of them—who have set up temporary communication centres in London and elsewhere. As late as today we find another alarming consequence of this dispute which might be described as a life and death situation. A major Dublin hospital which has been crippled during the past month by this dispute is facing a mass walk out of the workers tomorrow.

From the quotations I have given from a selection of statements made in recent months, we can see that industry, tourism, exports, hospital services and ordinary telephone subscribers have been the victims of this ridiculous situation which should not have been allowed to happen. It is utterly chaotic and indefensible. From inquiries I have made in the past few days I understand that there are 10,000 telephones now out of order. Even when the dispute has been settled there will be an enormous backlog to be caught up with in getting those telephones back into service. I assume that the same applies to telex and computer data equipment.

I emphasise these aspects of the dispute because they are the ones with which I am most concerned. As I said at the outset, I am utterly appalled at the apparent lack of concern shown by the Minister who, in his lengthy speech, dealt with part of the history of the industrial relations in the Department. Since this dispute started many suggestions have been put forward as to how a resumption of work might be brought about in the shortterm. Many other suggestions have been made in regard to the long-term industrial relations situation in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The Minister has been critical of Opposition Deputies who have spoken recently on this dispute. Every time the spokesman for this party has gone before the public, we have endeavoured to be practical and constructive as well as criticising the Minister for his lack of activity.

I believe that if the Minister were now to make the obvious gesture of inviting the IPOEU to meet him this would, as has been suggested by a number of my colleagues, including Deputy Michael O'Leary, pave the way for the laying down of guidelines for a formula for an immediate resumption of work. In relation to the long-term situation, there have been a number of calls for a public inquiry into the situation. It has also been suggested that an independent commission be established to examine, analyse and assess the causes of the present industrial relations problems in the Minister's Department and that this commission would formulate recommendations in relation to future strategy.

The Minister has not given any real indication that he has considered any of these suggestions. He has been at pains to explain why he himself could not meet the IPOEU. We say that he should meet them and that he should have taken this initiative long ago. I appeal to him at this late hour to take this first step, to make this initial gesture, towards solving the problem. I am convinced from the various discussions I have had on the question of industrial relations in the Department that the time has come for an independent commission of inquiry. Call it a public inquiry, call it a sworn inquiry, call it whatever you like, but it is obvious that the time has come for an independent commission of inquiry, a suggestion which was put forward from this side of the House on several occasions recently.

Let us face facts. It is obvious that there is something radically wrong with the industrial relations situation in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Therefore, the Minister must meet the union. Secondly, I suggest an independent commission of inquiry, which was hinted at in the election manifesto and to which the Minister referred on a previous occasion when he undertook to review the situation. The time for reviewing is now past and action must be taken.

I appeal to the Minister to respond now by taking those two obvious steps. First, he should meet the union, be man enough to do it and get the parties involved around the table. Cut out the nonsense, forget about the red tape and the regulations and get these men around the table. I have no doubt whatsoever that with goodwill and common sense a formula can be found for the immediate resumption of work. Second, I believe that the guidelines and the modus operandi for tackling the question of industrial relations in the Department can also be settled.

The consequences of this dispute are frightening. I am sure the Deputies on the opposite side are as aware as we are of the hardship, inconvenience, loss of business and loss of jobs which has resulted from this dispute. I know of one foreign industry with whom the IDA had been negotiating who have terminated the negotiations. I am led to believe that this has happened because of the present telecommunications dispute. At the best of times this small country has a vital dependence upon an efficient telecommunications system. The Minister is aware of this from his experience in the Department of the Gaeltacht in trying to promote industry in remote areas and so on. Exports are our life blood. Our ability to attract investment, to generate new exports, which is essential for the creation of new jobs, depends on the availability of an efficient, modern and reliable telecommunications system.

As the Minister is aware, this dispute has implications above and beyond the making of telephone calls. In recent years industry and tourism have become more and more dependent on sophisticated communications equipment, data processing and the development of computers. Some time ago I was in Galway at the headquarters of Gaeltarra Éireann where there is a modern computer complex which provides services for many industries and which has been completely disrupted. Worst of all, Gaeltarra Éireann headquarters could not communicate with their subsidiary in Donegal.

I am disappointed with the approach adopted today by the Minister. The Minister will have to change his tune very quickly if our economic life is not to grind to a halt. Mar focal scoir, ba mhaith liom a iarraidh arís ar an Aire an doras a oscailt agus ba chóir dó suí timpeall boird in a oifig féin le ionadaí on gceard chumann agus na fadhbanna a phlé. Táim cinnte má dhéanann an tAire é sin go mbeidh toradh fónta agus go mbeidh gach aoinne ag obair arís le cúnamh Dé.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I have endeavoured, in anything I have had to say on this very serious dispute to date, to speak with a sense of responsibility. I believe all Deputies in the House, whatever their party, understand the havoc which is being caused as a result of this particularly serious dispute, especially in industry and tourism as well as in the health sector.

When I had responsibility for some of those matters I often found myself in the position of the Minister, explaining where I felt rightness lay in a particular dispute. I do not think I often found myself explaining my position, as I saw it then, with so little to point to by way of concrete action taken by me as is the position of the Minister in the dispute in question. I hope this debate is not simply a public relations ploy by the Minister and the Government.

There has been a remarkable change in the attitude of the Government to debate this question. The Opposition were given to understand some weeks ago that the Government did not think anything helpful would be served by having a discussion in the House. I welcome the chance to discuss this dispute this afternoon in the hope that it may spur the Minister to act. It is not that anything that we may say here will produce an instant solution to this difficult question but there is the hope that the Minister may, as a result of our discussion, change his mind on what I consider still to be the vital question of meeting the union concerned, meeting the executive of the people who are on strike.

I am disappointed at the statement made by the Minister this afternoon. It gives no evidence of any fresh thinking of how this dispute is to be settled. Almost three-fourths of his speech was devoted to propagating once more the proposals that were so recently rejected. I am glad he was able to distribute his speech to members of the Press. That is a very good practice as the Press must know what the executive think on any issue. I thank the Minister for his courtesy in making copies of his speech available to members of the Opposition when we requested them. Members of the Press and members of the Opposition will search in vain for any hint in that speech of what the Minister proposes to do to settle this dispute. Many pages were used to explain how much he favours the recently rejected proposals. Surely he realises that those proposals, even if narrowly rejected, have in fact been rejected? Where do we go from here? What is the point in regaling the House on the virtue of proposals so recently rejected? What does the Minister propose to do now?

The whole point of this debate is that when it comes to the Minister's turn to answer the debate, having heard once more from Opposition Deputies that this industry is threatened, that export orders are threatened, that there is trouble in a particular hospital and that members of the public have approached Opposition Deputies on this dispute, he will be able to enlighten the House and the country on what he proposes to do now. When one is searching for a solution to a particularly difficult problem one must constantly reassess the situation, consider why that proposal was rejected and see if there is another road which may be tried. I am not underestimating the difficulties of this problem but the Minister must give very serious consideration to the possible benefits that might arise from meeting the executive of the union concerned.

The Minister appears to be taking refuge in a kind of righteousness while the telecommunication system is crackling to a halt. The country needs more from the Minister than a recitation of past events. We had in the Minister's long statement almost verbatim lifts from previous speeches of his on the same topic. I am sure that if we had time to look over the speech we would find whole chunks of the speech distributed to the Press are mere repetitions regarding a dispute which is several weeks old now. We can only be depressed that the Minister appears to be showing no evidence of fresh thinking on this dispute. He simply treated the House to a rehash of previous statements which were wrung from him by members of the Opposition in the House. Does the Minister not appreciate, however right he may feel he is, that in his present position the country is not interested in elegant statements but is more interested in hearing what is his programme for settling this dispute?

I do not know why we have got this debate this afternoon. We have put down Private Notice Questions but up to now the Government have felt that the less said about this dispute in Parliament the more speedy a solution would be found to it. I do not know if the newspaper editorials on this dispute in the last few days have had anything to do with getting us this debate today. The Minister for Finance in a discussion last Sunday about this dispute appeared to think that newspapers should not criticise the Government when it came to their handling of this dispute. The Minister for Finance, on the evidence of his few words last Sunday, appears to be a first testy casualty to the sin of arrogance by the member of a Government still only a few months old.

I have not lost the hope that the Minister in his reply will indicate what steps he proposes to take. I believe that this debate, from the Government's point of view, will be more than a public relations ploy. I hope the debate can encourage the Minister to take some initiative. I believe he has a role to play in the settlement of this dispute. I am not one of those who think that ministerial interventions in industrial relations disputes are good to be used occasion after occasion. When I occupied one of those benches opposite I said that a Minister should only intervene in a protracted dispute and only in one which the public interest was seriously jeopardised and only in one where existing procedures had failed to bring about a solution.

Does this dispute answer those criteria? Is the public interest damaged as a result of this dispute? Have existing procedures brought about the necessary solution? Is there any possibility of any solution in the near future? I believe this dispute meets the very careful criteria for intervention which I set down when I occupied one of the benches opposite and which any other man opposite who looks at these problems must abide by. There are criteria which should guide a Minister in intervening in a dispute; the question of very serious judgment to be exercised. Let us admit that even when a Minister intervenes where existing procedures have failed, where the public interest is threatened and where there is little likelihood of a settlement there is a risk of failure. Indeed, when I was Minister I had some failures even though I worked hard to get a solution. The country cannot forgive ministerial inaction and cannot forgive the Minister for coming in here, in a dispute which threatens the livelihood of those in industry, and rehashing speeches that are weeks old without giving any indication of what steps he will take to reach a solution. That is not good enough. I hope the Minister and his officials will consider what they are to do in the wake of this debate. There is no point in rehashing the virtues of proposals that have been rejected. I congratulate the Irish Congress of Trade Unions who worked so hard in bringing forward those proposals. The Minister in his speech appears to be attempting to cast the congress in the role of intregral industrial relations unit for his Department and the Department of Labour. That is not the role of congress. The congress acted in the guise of honest broker, attempting to get proposals through which would gain the approval of the unions and the Department. The congress is the only body which attempted to get settlement of this dispute.

The Minister not for political advantage or profit but just for the purposes of the Official Report felt that he must point out that this dispute goes back to the wicked days of the Coalition, that this problem comes from the locker of bones left by the Coalition and has nothing to do with this pristine Government of 84 Deputies. The Taoiseach also gently pointed that out. The Taoiseach, like the present Minister, is not in the game of politics. How many industrial relations problems are there which began last week? At the very heart of this dispute is a question of productivity. Many of the productivity problems began years ago. Productivity bargaining here started around 1968. I can think of one productivity dispute in the public transport company that goes back to 1961, but where does this argument about the origin of disputes get us? It does not get the Minister off the hook in terms of the necessity for him to act. The Minister cannot escape his obligation to intervene at this point. The Minister would not endanger existing procedures by intervening. There is a public requirement that the Minister should intervene. The House would have less criticism to offer if the Minister could come in here today and point to his intervening efforts in a dispute which has been going on as long as this. After all the Minister is a member of a Cabinet which is publicly committed to a big drive on job creation. How many jobs have we lost as a result of this dispute? Public money is being spent on the public service to provide more jobs and the taxpayers are asked to foot the bill, yet day by day, for all we know, jobs are being lost as this dispute continues on its merry, unimpeded way. Surely there is a contradiction here. The Minister believes that all existing procedures would fall to the ground if he met this union, but existing procedures have brought forth no solution so far. Who would object if the Minister met the union concerned to see whether any return-to-work formula could be arranged? It is not as if one went to these meetings with a preconceived solution. Solutions to such difficult problems are arrived at through teasing out the problems and in personal confrontation with the disputants concerned to know where they see their way back to a work situation. No one can say that this union is not anxious to get its members back to work as speedily as possible.

The Minister in his speech criticised statements I made as being unhelpful. I have attempted to be responsible in the many comments I made on this dispute. The Minister attempts to cast me in the role of critic of the congress proposals. I hope I have made it clear that one must be grateful that at least one body attempted to get a settlement. The congress proposals were not successful and with hindsight, and anyone in the congress or the trade union world will admit, the basic reason for the rejection of the proposals was the suspensions by the Department. It is not a coincidence that the largest body of voters against the recent proposals came from the areas where most suspensions occurred. It follows that we must find a solution to the problems associated with suspensions if we are to get a return to work formula. It also follows that some resolution must be found to the conflict between the disciplinary policy of the Department and the Minister's role of seeking a solution to the dispute. Whilst the Minister has been standing back from the dispute saying that it is not his business to intervene, his Department have not been standing back but have been suspending people. Unless our settlement faces up to all the problems posed by the suspensions it is clear that 700 people are labouring under a deeply felt grievance that they have been unjustly treated over the past seven or eight weeks by being directed to go to work and to pass their own pickets. Mr. Justice Kenny in the High Court stated that he had no doubt that the direction given to the plaintiffs to report for duty to the depot at Mill-street—the plaintiffs being the union members—was the result of a carefully thought-out plan by the Minister and his advisers all of whom knew that the plaintiffs would not pass the picket at Millstreet, and that he was convinced that the Minister and his advisers by doing this were seeking to provide themselves with a reason for suspending the plaintiffs. The judge also said he thought that the direction to work at Millstreet was given when the Minister and his advisers knew that the plaintiffs would not, indeed could not, obey it. The Department are working with their disciplinary procedures and the Minister is standing back from the dispute saying that he is powerless to act and is waiting for the congress to come forward with proposals. The congress came forward with proposals which were rejected, and looking back it would appear that the main reason for the rejection was the grievance felt by many people who were suspended in the course of this dispute.

In an effort to be helpful to the Minister in his job I question also whether he is wisely advised to continue the policy evident since the start of this dispute. This is what is so depressing about the Minister's contribution today. It shows no evidence whatsoever of any fresh thinking on his part from the first statements he made in this dispute. He has neither changed his advisers nor rethought the whole position. He continues with the same black and white version with which he started out.

The Minister says the union is divided. How does the Minister think that his role as a person who can bring about a settlement will be helped by these public attacks on the union? How many industrial relations situations have occurred here in which everyone knew there were divisions of all kinds both on the side of the management and union? Settlement of such disputes is not helped by the Minister saying there is division in the union, that it is the union's fault. Where does that get us? It gets us interest in newspaper copy; it gets us lots of strong condemnation of the union's position. Presumably the Minister's paramount interest in all of this is to get a settlement. We, the public, exporters, industry and everybody else affected are not interested—indeed trade unionists in other jobs whose jobs are threatened are not interested—in who is right or wrong in this matter. It is a settlement we are after. A settlement is not helped by public sniping of this kind and, least of all, from the Minister. I never indulged in it. I often had a personal opinion about who in a particular instance was wrong, but it did not help me to come out and state that, because my primary role was to get a settlement. That is and remains the Minister's primary role. The Minister is not there to be a recorder of right or wrong. He is there to get a settlement.

I believe that in regard to any settlement or return to work formula— without getting down to the major job still remaining to be done, that of general agreement on a productivity deal for the entire Department and the Minister is right in saying that eventually this will involve other unions—the Minister or somebody acting on his behalf must look at the question of the suspensions, facing up to the issues raised by them, to the sense of grievance felt by so many people who have been suspended— wrongly, as they see it, directed, as they were, to pass pickets of their own unions. I have already quoted what a judge of the High Court—one might say, not a biased observer—had to say on that policy.

I have asked the Minister to meet the executive of that union in an effort to get a return to work formula. I do not see how this will endanger existing procedures. I might ask him another question in relation to his work in seeking a settlement of this dispute. We have heard from his own lips what congress have done to try to settle this dispute. Most people looking at what congress have attempted to do up to now can have nothing but praise for their role. They have been very actively seeking a solution, have met the union, the Department and so on. One must ask when did the Minister last meet the Industrial Relations Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Has he met them since the proposals were rejected? Has the Minister sought any meeting with the union side since the rejection of the recent proposals? Has the Minister examined why those proposals were rejected? I have not at my disposal any information on any survey in the matter. I can rely merely on my own instinct in this respect when I think that the suspensions were basically the main reason for the rejection of the recent proposals, that the proposals did not appear to constitute any settlement of the grievances to those who had been suspended. That, as I see it intuitively, was one of the major reasons for rejection on the last occasion. I may be wrong in that, but the Minister is the person who should be in touch with the entire situation. Presumably he has at his disposal sources of information directing him in that regard.

I might put another question to the Minister. At this moment in time does he know what constitutes the union's minimum conditions for a return to work? Is he in possession of that information? Can he inform the House? The Minister says he is ready to meet congress for clarification. If the proposals have been rejected what exactly does the Minister mean by clarification of those rejected proposals? I should like to hear the Minister on what point there is in this meeting with congress limited to the purpose, as he has said already, of simple clarification of proposals. After all, the proposals are a matter of history now; they have been rejected.

I hope I am not native in thinking that this debate is not purely a public relations exercise on the part of the Minister, one in which he merely invites the Opposition to offer their solutions, because that was the rather truculent approach of the Minister for Finance last Sunday: if one did not have an instant solution to this dispute one should keep one's mouth shut. Indeed up to quite recently it was the attitude of the Government that one should not even discuss it in Parliament because that was unhelpful. But, for Members of the Opposition—and I have some experience of how settlement of matters such as those now facing the Minister can be reached— it is difficult without having at one's disposal all relevant information, reports of the most up-to-date meetings, dispositions of the parties on both sides, their attitudes, their bargaining positions, what they might settle for, all of these questions necessary for reaching a settlement.

Obviously informatíon of the kind in departmental hands is not at the disposal of Opposition Deputies. But I will say this to the Minister—just so that we may gag him should he conclude this debate simply by resorting to the kind of abuse that the Opposition did not come up with any solution to this dispute—I have indicated already what I think was the basic reason the last proposals were rejected and where the search for new proposals should be concentrated, namely, on the question of suspensions. Further than that it is difficult for me to go without acquaintance with the files in the Minister's possession. I will say further to the Minister: if he will give me access to all the facts in the possession of his Department, together with the assistance of officials of his Department, I will intervene. I will be ready to offer myself as mediator in this dispute, subject to all the risks that offer has for me. I have some experience of intervention in these areas. There is absolutely no guarantee I will be successful but, if the Minister will not intervene, I will intervene on those conditions.

I have listened to Opposition spokesmen when I was over there make outlandish statements in relation to industrial disputes. I am not speaking about backbenchers' contributions. I think of a contribution last year in regard to a dispute in Irish Steel when the present Minister for Labour and a Member of the then Opposition party, now in the European Parliament, Deputy Brosnan, behaved disgracefully in this House on an Adjournment Debate in regard to a very difficult industrial dispute, one which was not going untended, one which was being given constant attention by the Labour Court and in relation to which there were many meetings held. Yet that Members treated me and other members of the Government of that period to the most wild abuse and did not care very much about the accuracy of what he said. However, I do not wish to go down that road now because I know how serious is this dispute.

I am willing, if the Minister gives me all the information in his possession, together with the assistance of officials of his Department, to intervene personally. It is a poor substitute for intervention by the Minister himself. After all he has been given the democratic mandate to deal with this matter, but that is a challenge I throw down to him.

I think the Minister is wrongly advised on the nature of congress itself if he thinks there can be further profitable intervention by congress in this dispute because the relationship between congress and the affiliated unions is such that when union members are on strike congress exists chiefly to assist the members of that union. Congress is assisting this union. Congress considers the dispute to have a legitimate basis.

The Minister has offered to meet congress simply for clarification purposes in regard to recent proposals which have been rejected. Since they have been rejected with the best will in the world I cannot see what role is now left for congress. The Labour Court cannot intervene in civil service matters of this kind without a specific request by the Minister for Labour under section 24 of the Industrial Relations Act. Will the Minister for Labour ask the court to intervene? So far there has been no evidence to show that he will. This dispute is adversely affecting industry throughout the whole country. It is now statemate. The Minister maintains he is right and all the evil belongs on the union side. To what can the country look forward? Will the Minister have some proposal to make when he winds up the debate? If the Executive says confidence must be voted in Deputy Faulkner, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, in his handling of this dispute, that is it.

What lies behind the Government's total inactivity in this dispute? Are they anxious to turn the public and the media against one trade union in the hope that a similar attitude will grow towards all trade unions? There must be some explanation for the Minister's inactivity. Is he listening to some advice in his Department about the possibility of hiving off the more profitable sections of the phone section of his Department to some private company like Ericsons? Is he trying to prove it is impossible to run the Department and that it should be split up? Is he trying to demonstrate that so unreasonable have the unions become nothing else will solve the present problem? One has to look for wayout suggestions to explain the inactivity of the Minister. Have I another minute, Sir?

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not aware of any time limit.

Mr. O'Donnell

Two minutes.

Mr. M. O'Leary

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions have behaved admirably throughout this dispute. There may be further scope for their intervention. I do not know. Certainly they can be excused if they do not see any scope. They have worked hard to find a solution. The Minister says that if he intervenes existing procedures will be damaged. In the manifesto which brought the Minister into office there are specific references to the need to review procedures in the Post Office. There was no reluctance to meet the members of the Post Office workers' union prior to the election last June, and no reluctance to meet any other union, and the impression created by the Fianna Fáil manifesto was that if Fianna Fáil were returned to Government they would immediately review industrial relations in the Post Office. The Minister in his own manifesto gave very clear undertakings to do precisely that. He says he is willing to review the whole rule book. He admits the rules are archaic. What damage then could be done if the Minister met the Post Office workers' union in an effort to get a return-to-work formula? What damage could be done if he discussed the suspensions and considered what has to be done to meet the grievances of those suspended? Unless that is settled the proposals the Minister defended here to day are dead. They were rejected, admittedly by a narrow margin, but they were rejected by a democratic vote. Something else must now be tried. The Minister must intervene. He must start by abandoning the thinking so evident in his speech here today. He must agree to meet the executives concerned and sit down with them in an effort to get a return-to-work formula, subsequently considering the whole question of productivity.

One could say a great deal more. I have attempted to be constructive. I am personally prepared to intervene if the Minister gives me the documentation and the assistance of the officials. I will start tonight by calling the union executive together. In the hope that the Minister will favour me with a meeting to discuss the dispute I will proceed to intervene tonight in an effort to find a solution.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 5 Apr 1978

Telecommunications Dispute: Motion

Mr. Barry

Deputies

Tá

Níl

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Apr 1978