Thank you for allowing me to raise this matter and the Minister of State for taking the debate.
I regret having to again raise the matter of the dispute between Ryanair and its baggage handlers who are members of SIPTU. Like everyone else, I warmly welcomed the announcement by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste on 8 March that an inquiry team had been appointed under section 39(2) of the Industrial Relations Act to look into the dispute, a development which facilitated a return to work and allowed Dublin Airport to return to normal. Although I raised the dispute on a number of previous occasions and was critical of the tactics of Ryanair management, I have made no public comment on the dispute since that weekend because I believe the inquiry team should be allowed get on with its work and seek a reasonable settlement to what everyone acknowledges is one of the most difficult disputes in recent years.
We all recall the serious disruption to travel and the economy when the dispute resulted in the closure of Dublin Airport on the weekend of March 7 and 8. Nobody wants to see Dublin Airport closed. There are, however, worrying signs that Ryanair might not be serious about the inquiry and might provoke a further outbreak of industrial hostilities at the airport. The general officers of SIPTU state in a letter today to the Taoiseach:
Since that date [8 March] we have become increasingly concerned that Ryanair management are not interested in fair or reasonable procedures but are determined to use any and every measure possible to frustrate the efforts of the inquiry team and to demoralise and intimidate the union members involved.
It was very clear to most people observing events over the weekend of 7 and 8 March that Ryanair management was very reluctant to give any undertaking that the company would co-operate with the inquiry. There were reports that the Taoiseach had great difficulty in persuading Ryanair to participate in the inquiry. Concerns were intensified by the fact that the previously silent and barely visible Mr. O'Leary was suddenly on virtually every news programme giving very contentious interpretations of the terms of the settlement to which the company and the union had agreed.
However, there must now be serious doubt as to whether Ryanair was ever serious about cooperating with the inquiry team and making a genuine attempt to find a settlement of the dispute. A series of provocative actions over the past week appear to have been designed to provoke the union and to scuttle the efforts of the inquiry team. The letter from the SIPTU officers states:
Since our members resumed normal working we have seen legal recourse to injunction, selective payment of tax paid bonuses, inflammatory management circulars, legal pressure on the inquiry team and, now, the peremptory dismissal of three baggage handlers without any representation, consideration or right of appeal. We see these actions as deliberately provocative in a highly charged and sensitive industrial relations environment.
No matter how the company attempts to dress up its action in less offensive terms, the indisputable fact is that three workers have been sacked in clear breach of the terms of the agreement which both management and union had accepted, specifically the undertaking that there would be no victimisation by either side. There is no more provocative action that could be taken at this stage in such a sensitive dispute than to dismiss three of the employees who had been involved in the industrial action. This was a calculated act taken in the hope and expectation that it would provoke the union into an immediate renewal of industrial action and thus effectively scuttle the work of the inquiry team. I welcome the fact that the response of SIPTU to this provocation has been responsible and restrained.
The agreement which led to a resumption of normal working on 9 March was brokered as a result of intervention by members of the Government at the highest level. On 8 March the Taoiseach wrote to SIPTU regarding the terms of the agreement and stated: "We are strongly of the view that they represent a fair and reasonable basis for a resumption of normal working as well as for the completion of the inquiry". A core element of that agreement was that there would be no victimisation. No union could have agreed to a return to normal working without such an undertaking. That undertaking has now been broken by the company and there is a clear obligation on those Ministers who brokered the agreement to intervene again to ensure that the company honours its commitment and that three employees are reinstated. There is also an obligation on the Government to ensure that the efforts to find a settlement to this dispute are successful because if the inquiry process fails there will be an inevitable return to industrial action with all the potential damage which that entails for the airport and the economy as a whole.
