I understand the Minister proposes to reply to the two questions together. I will call on the Deputies in the order on which they submitted their questions.
Private Notice Questions. - Threatened B & I Line Industrial Action.
asked the Minister for the Marine if he plans to take any steps to secure a solution to the industrial dispute in the B & I Line in view of the threatened strike by ships officers from Friday next, especially in the light of the damage that cancellation of ferry services would cause as we enter the tourism season, and if he will make a statement on the matter.
asked the Minister for the Marine the action, if any, he proposes to take to avert the industrial action at the B & I Line from Friday next; the action, if any, he proposes to take if efforts to avert industrial action are unsuccessful, and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I realise Deputy Doyle has a question on the Adjournment this evening and I am, therefore, deeply appreciative of the courtesy she has extended to me in adding it to the question tabled by Deputy De Rossa, Leader of Democratic Left, and Deputy Gilmore.
I share the Deputies' dismay at the prospect of disruption of freight and passenger services from Friday next on B & I routes. The consequences for Irish exporters and for the travelling public at this peak time are unacceptable. It will be damaging to the public interest, to the interests of B & I and its work force and to Dublin port.
Let me make it abundantly clear at the outset that neither I nor my Department has a role in industrial relations matters in B & I which operates within the private sector. I have not been requested by either side in this dispute to intervene at this time, nor would I consider it appropriate to do so. The well-tried and tested procedure of the Labour Relations Commission and Labour Court are available through which resolutions can and should be pursued without delay and I strongly urge unions and management in the B & I to utilise the existing machinery in the interests of resolving the impasse which has, regrettably, been reached and which does not sit well with commitments by the social partners to promote industrial harmony under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
The dispute revolves around manning levels which were the subject of a 1992 Labour Court agreement. I do not intend to comment at this remove on the specifice of that issue which is for negotiation between unions and management at the B & I. I do not have a remit in regard to industrial relations negotiations as Minister for the Marine. That role may lie elsewhere. In the meantime there is machinery apparent to everybody that can be used in bringing about a speedy resolution of this problem.
Reflective of my responsibility for shipping policy generally, I should like to bring a number of highly relevant and positive developments to the attention of Deputies which make imminent disruption of services all the more unsatisfactory and difficult to accept. It is vitally important that Deputies are fully informed of the very positive developments taking place in the overall context of a shipping imports policy. These developments are highly relevant to the concerns which apparently underlie the present dispute. Further progress on these initiatives and the positive climate in which they are taking place would be undoubtedly put at risk in a situation of industrial unrest and paralysis of services.
The following initiatives are being advanced in full consultation with SIPTU and other relevant interests. A comprehensive strategic review of shipping policy is underway in line with the commitment given in the Programme for Government. The objective is to enable Irish shipping companies to meet interpolicy is under way in line with the compromising on safety. The intention is to ensure the maintenance and creation of employment in the sector and to facilitate productive investment to modernise and expand the fleet. I have invited the unions to participate fully in the review of shipping policy and substantive discussions are now under way on the issues involved. I have also indicated my willingness to meet with representatives of SIPTU at an early date. In that context pre-arranged discussions between Department officials and SIPTU will take place on 17 June which will, inter alia, prepare the ground for this meeting. SIPTU has been informed of a recent Government decision involving a strategy which secures B & I's position at Holyhead, including a major investment in a new dedicated terminal where the Government will act as guarantor of a satisfactory arrangement. This development is part of a scheme aimed at parallel and complementary enhancement of the ferry terminals of Dublin port and Dún Laoghaire.
The 1991 agreement with the unions when B & I was privatised will also be examined with all interested parties to determine how expressed concerns about subseqeunt developments in B & I may be met in the context of shipping and economic policies generally.
In short, there is a substantive commitment to advancing the interests of the shipping sector through a collective process of dialogue, review and planning. A conducive atmosphere for that dialogue is essential to this process and is in the best interest of workforce and management alike not just in B & I but throughout the sector.
My door is open to unions and management alike on all matters of shipping policy. We have set the agenda for dialogue and constructive review which is now under way. Closed doors elsewhere are not in the interests of the overall objectives for the sector which are shared by the Government, myself and the social partners.
I would like to make it clear that neither I nor the Department has any role to play in industrial relations matters in the B & I which operates within the private sector. I have not been requested to intervene, nor have my services been sought in this dispute and if they were sought it would be inappropriate for me to intervene in the circumstances of my remit and role as already stated.
Does the Minister agree that if this strike takes place it will seriously disrupt the tourism season and the holiday plans of many Irish citizens who may have planned to travel by B & I? I appreciate his comments about not intervening directly in the industrial relations dispute but will he agree that management of B & I have been precipitate in posting notices cancelling sailings from next Friday which, given the sensitive nature of the dispute about to take place, will fuel the problem and add to the disruption the dispute may cause? While the Minister may not have a role in the industrial relations issues involved, as Minister for the Marine he most certainly has a role in the wider issues involved in this dispute which relate to the nature of employment in shipping. Since its privatisation this company has operated a deliberate policy of job shedding and reducing well paid and secure employment in a shipping company to a form of Third World flag of convenience "hire one day, gone the next" employment, which now seems to be the favoured practice not only of B & I but of other carriers on the Irish Sea.
On the point about damaging the tourism season, a strike in the manner intended in any company that caters for up to 10,000 ferry passengers and 100 trucks a day would have a significant effect on tourism and trade. On the issue of management, it would be inappropriate for me as Minister for the Marine to comment on that matter. I understand the Deputy's concern about what he describes as the precipitate posting of notices. That is a matter for negotiation and reconciliation between the unions and management in the first instance and there may be a breakdown in that regard.
On the suggestion that maritime policy is part of the core problem in this area, I have a role in maritime policy and I am begining to formulate such a policy. This is a matter about which I am concerned and which I am addressing. On the flags of convenience, there is need for safety in shipping at all costs. Some ships have crews which cannot communicate with one another due to a language difficulty and that is one of the areas I will be examining. I will also be examining the question of Irish people employed on ships travelling from this island. That is a very important matter which will be considered in the context of discussions that are about to begin in the first instance between the Department of the Marine officials and SIPTU and possibly in the not too distant future with the company concerned.
I wish to take up where Deputy Gilmore left off without covering the same ground. I am a little concerned that the Minister has not been requested to intervene in the dispute but I am even more concerned about his comment that it would be inappropriate for him to do so. With respect, I beg to differ on that point. Is the Minister aware of an agreement signed on 16 December 1991 by his colleague, the then Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications who at the time had responsibility for B & I, which accepted that the Government would have a pivotal role to play? I suggest the Minister has a role in this matter and I urge him to intervene.
I am sure the Minister is aware of the chaos that will loom on the Rosslare and Dublin routes if a complete cancellation of services in the face of industrial action goes ahead this weekend. As the B & I caters for 10,000 passengers and 100 trucks a day at the height of the tourist season, the other ferry companies could not take up the slack. The good name of Irish shipping, access transport and the tourism industry is at stake and the Minister suggeests he has no role to play. Without apportioning blame to SIPTU and the B & I unions and their failure to act on the 1992 Labour Court agreement, or to management, I am unhappy about many of the present practices.
I ask the Minister, in view of the Government having signed the 1991 agreement at the time of the B & I privatisation to the ICG group, to honour that commitment and adopt a pivotal role in terms of protecting employment and the ships on our register. He should immediately become involved in this matter. The Minister is by nature diplomatic, not combative, and he could have a very important role to play in bringing all sides together. We do not rule out the Labour Court but the Minister should not rule out his own intervention either.
I am grateful to the Deputy for the confidence she may have in me. On the pivotal role agreement of 12 December 1991, that agreement was signed by the then Minister and I am not certain that Ministers in a new administration, although it is of the same colour, are necessarily bound by agreements made on a different occasion.
That is not what we were told at the time.
I thought it was only the electorate who were treated in that way.
I have been here since 1965, and perhaps that is too long, but I was definitely here in 1991.
The Minister was not in Government then.
We are working on that.
Not very many people have been here that long. However, sin ceist eile. I do not feel bound by the agreement made at that time, but as a matter of honour——
It is a Government agreement.
Ask Deputy Dukes. Check the record.
The Minister, please, to respond.
As a matter of honour, I will be glad to consider the matter, and that is what I am doing. It is in the pipeline and I will not run away from my responsibilities. I do not believe I have an industrial relations role, nor would that be appropriate. The parties have not invited me to participate and, if so invited, I do not think it would be appropriate to do so because there are mechanisms that should be addressed in advance of the intervention of a Minister. I do not think I would be the appropriate Minister.
On the question of damage to tourism, there is a very serious problem. We are about to begin what I think will be a record tourist season and we are once more causing hardship and chaos in our services. This will impact on visitors travelling to and from this island. I do not think this is acceptable because visitors caught up in such a situation will probably never want to return to Ireland. That is one of the unfortunate aspects of what happens during strikes of this type. I make a strong plea to SIPTU and B & I to resolve this dispute urgently in their own interests and that of the country. That is as far as I can and will go.
I wish to concentrate on the Minister's responsibility as I distinctly recall during the privatisation of B & I the then Minister, Deputy Seamus Brennan——
I am not bound by the actions of the then Minister, Deputy Brennan.
——coming in here with an agreement which he said he had secured from the trade unions which would guarantee routes, protect employment and so on. It was certainly represented to this House that the agreement would be honoured by future Governments and this Minister is the inheritor of that agreement, which covered issues at the centre of this dispute. I appeal to the Minister for the Marine to honour that agreement. It is disturbing to hear him say he is disposed to welsh on the agreement that was made with the trade unions.
That is an unjust comment.
Will the Minister state whether he intends to honour that agreement and involve himself with a view to honouring that agreement and protecting employment and routes which are at the centre of this dispute?
There is a third dimension to the dispute — it is not a simple industrial relations issue between a trade union and a private company. There is the guarantee that was given and the agreement that was reached between the then Government and the trade unions.
I am not running away from the agreement which the Deputy says I succeed to, nor will I welsh on any matter of honour, as far as this Government is concerned. To suggest that I am absolutely bound by an agreement made by a previous Government——
Of course the Minister is.
Of course I am not.
The Minister is.
We will have to test it elsewhere and perhaps the courts are the place to test it. I undertake to examine the pivotal agreement of 12 December 1991 in a calm and dispassionate fashion with the parties concerned and come to some resolution on it.
To suggest — and this is the unjust aspect of Deputy Gilmore's intervention — that I am not concerned about routing, employment and other fundamental issues in the matter flies in the face of the truth.
I accept as true the Minister's remarks about not being bound by a decision of a previous Government and I think Deputy Dukes will be able to confirm that because he succeeded to Government subsequent to decisions of a previous Government. The record will show that is a fact.
Absolutely not.
It is a fact and Deputy Dukes knows it better than I because he served in Cabinet.
The Deputy has the wrong end of the stick.
Will the Minister seek to establish, notwithstanding that he does not have a role in industrial relations, if there are short term assurances he can offer or whether there is anything in the policy matters he is drawing up that would help to diminish the degree of confrontation in this dispute? If there is a prospect that the Minister can offer short term assurances — I am not sure there is — I appeal to him to do so. I realise that the Minister is in the process of drawing up a wide-ranging maritime policy, and I am not asking him to compromise it, but is there potential for short term assurances that would offer a prospect that would diminish the level of confrontation and allow both sides to seek to resolve their differences in a more temperate way?
I share the Deputy's concern and I am anxious equally that the dispute ends promptly. I am not sure whether the Deputy heard the point in my substantive reply. Several initiatives are being advanced in full consultation with SIPTU and other relevant interests. There is a comprehensive strategic review of shipping policy under way in line with the commitment given in the Programme for Government. The objective is to enable Irish Shipping to meet international competition.
That is a great help today.
I realise that and it is unfortunate that I cannot give the type of commitment that is being sought. Deputies Dukes, Doyle, Gilmore and Fitzgerald will realise that there are mechanisms available to the parties in dispute which they have not sought to operate. I think that is the route they should go down. I am not in the business of interventionism and if there were to be an intervention it might come from some other ministerial colleague.
In his initial response to our questions the Minister indicated that the shipping policy review would have among its terms of reference the role required to maintain and create employment. The Minister will recall points made in Deputy Gilmore's supplementary questions. I share the concern about B & I employing non-national crews. If we are to maintain and create employment in the shipping industry will the Minister make a start and not begin the review with a major loss in employment, which is what we will face if the threatened chaos goes ahead on the Dublin and Rosslare routes?
Will the Minister honour the spirit and letter of this agreement, a copy of which I have in my hand, which was signed by his colleague, the then Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications, who had responsibility for B & I? Will he ensure that the spirit and the letter of that agreement is honoured? It will come as a major shock to the B & I group of unions to learn that the Minister does not feel bound by this agreement. What good is an agreement wrought in the face of difficult debate, as this was, to buy peace after the privatisation of the B & I line if some years later it can be thrown aside because a general election has been held since? Was it not almost like a confidence trick on the group of unions in 1991 if this agreement has such little use?
It is acknowledged in the agreement that ICTU and the B & I group of unions have a pivotal role to play in ensuring that pledges by ICG are fulfilled. Accordingly, they have sought a specific undertaking from the Minister that he will uphold the law.
In view of this agreement, reached and signed by the Minister's colleague, between the B & I unions and ICG, will he prompt a sitting around the table today and, if necessary, using the industrial relations machinery that has yet to be used? Given that the Minister promised to play a pivotal role, I ask him to act as a catalyst in preventing Friday's industrial action and the withdrawal of all ships from the Dublin and the Rosslare routes. I ask him to bring all parties together today so as to allow both sides to pull back from the threatened industrial action.
This debate will act as a catalyst and, in the final analysis, they will see the errors of what is happening. On the question of the December 1991 agreement and the pivotal role I have indicated my position in relation to SIPTU maritime policy and so on. We are meeting with this trade union on Friday next, 17 June.
In the middle of the industrial dispute?
It is unfortunate that this happened but there are mechanisms available to the two parties which I urge them to use. I am also urging them to call off the strike and bring the matter to the Labour Court. I cannot do anything more at this stage. If they want to go down the road of strike action that will be tragic for the country, for B & I, for the trade union and for Dublin port and we know the history of Dublin port. I thought we had overcome the history of bad industrial relations there.
It will be tragic for Rosslare port also.
Of course it will be bad for Rosslare and what is bad for Rosslare is bad for Ireland.
I accept that.