It was here the Minister should have been during this week, here conducting the diplomatic and private, properly secretive and confidential, negotiations that might have led to a sensitive and delicate handling of the matter and brought it to a successful conclusion. But the guillotine motion that we are now discussing has been caused by the fact that the Minister for Labour was not here to introduce the Bill on Wednesday. The Minister for Labour had to hustle back from Geneva on Wednesday and take his Bill a day late and accordingly it is now a day late here, and a guillotine motion had to be introduced because of the absence of the Minister for Labour in the earlier part of the week. That is one of the reasons why we are having a guillotine motion today—because he chose not to be here to handle the Bill in the Dáil on Wednesday. He chose instead to relax in Geneva, presiding over some fuddy-duddy meeting that could have been handled by any of his deputy presidents.
These are the facts. Along with the Minister for Finance intervening with an outburst, we had the Minister for Labour fiddling away his time in Geneva instead of dealing with emergency legislation. Of course, I appreciate the difficulties of the Minister for Labour in hopping on planes. He has problems in that respect. But at the same time, Geneva is not in the Far East. Geneva is in Europe and Geneva is easily accessable as far as Dublin is concerned and certainly a little haste by the Minister for Labour to return here to his chores of handling the industrial disputes of the country might have meant a more orderly parliamentary debate of this matter. It would have given an extra day at least of parliamentary time because the Bill was available on Wednesday morning and could have been taken in the Dáil on Wednesday by the Minister for Labour were he not fiddling away in Geneva.
So we finally got the Bill, anyway, on Thursday when the Minister for Labour deigned to arrive here poste haste by plane and announced dramatically in all the media that he was coming back to handle the growing problem of the bank dispute. So on Thursday we got the Bill and the Bill is chopped through the Dáil and on Friday we have the Bill being chopped through the Seanad. We are going through a completely meaningless farce.
This is the reality of the matter. We are going through a completely meaningless farce. Far from contributing to the solution of this very difficult and intractable problem, he is undoubtedly adding further fuel to the fire. There is no question about that. With the Minister's intemperate remarks on the introduction of the Bill and the guillotine motion, we have a fine example of playacting, of Nero fiddling while Rome burns while the real fire brigade operation is taking place in another room from 10.30 this morning and will, hopefully, lead to a successful outcome. Whether this Bill is guillotined or not is irrelevant to the, we hope, successful outcome of these talks.
There is one other aspect I should like to mention. The real action is, hopefully, the conclusion of the national wage agreement; and the Minister is well aware of this too. There is a delegate meeting of Congress scheduled for 3rd July to consider the ballotting that is taking place at the moment on the part of the various unions. That is where the real action is taking place. Why is this Bill being rushed through while the unions at the moment are balloting, hopefully in a positive way, on a national wage agreement, which, hopefully, will emerge at the Congress delegate conference on 3rd July? That is where the real action and issue lie. Why was this Bill brought in at all? Any Fianna Fáil legislation of this kind was brought in on the basis of a national wage agreement, the implementation of such an agreement and, hopefully, the adoption of such an agreement.
What the Minister said earlier is untrue. This legislation is basically and fundamentally different from Fianna Fáil legislation brought in to deal with the problem of wage agreements. This Bill has nothing to do with the national wage agreement. This Bill, as it stands before us, seeks to hold the bank officials to the agreement concluded on 4th July, 1975.
If such was required, a far more realistic approach by the Government would be to await the outcome of the conference—which will be finally decided tomorrow week—then consider whether this legislation would be necessary. The Minister will answer that the bank strike will take place on Monday and he could not await the outcome of the national wage agreement talks. That point is valid only if this legislation would be effective in dealing with the situation that hopefully may not arise but may arise on Monday. This legislation can do nothing about it. If, through misfortune, the talks going on at the moment do not succeed and we proceed to a strike action situation on Monday, what can this legislation do about the matter? Is this not the reality of it all?
The only legislation of this kind that can be seen to be effective in the minds of the public, is legislation introduced in the context of the national wage agreement. Such was the only type of legislation of this kind we ever introduced in the Oireachtas. This legislation is meaningless. It will not affect the matter one way or the other. As I said earlier, the real action is taking place elsewhere. Hopefully, the discussions taking place elsewhere will terminate successfully, there will not be strike action on Monday but there will be a positive response to the ballot on the national wage agreement and then we can proceed on that basis. This Bill does not contribute one iota to the successful conclusion of the discussions which I desire and I know he desires. This Bill is irrelevant in that context.
It is deplorable that Parliament should be reduced to debating irrelelent legislation that cannot affect the situation. Passing guillotine motions to bring in ineffectual legislation is the sort of thing that brings parliament into disrepute. It beats Banagher for madness. It is like the mad tea party in Alice in Wonderland or something of that kind. This is the reality of the situation. If we stand back and look at the matter clinically and coolly, we will see that this legislation and motion in no way help towards the successful outcome of talks. That is a fact. The whole thing is a complete charade, a complete removal from reality. The introduction of the Bill, together with the Minister's verbal intervention last Thursday week, has done, in my view, positive harm.
What we want to see working out can, hopefully, be worked out in the course of the present discussions taking place and by a positive response by the trade unions in the ballot on the wage agreement. They are the matters that count. Abusing this Parliament by bringing in unnecessary and irrelevant legislation that can do nothing to affect the constructive outcome in regard to the events I have mentioned is only bringing this Parliament into disrepute. We should only bring in legislation that is meaningful, that can affect events, that can positively affect people and improve situations. That is what legislation should be about. That is what legislation was meant to be about. It was not meant to be used to abuse parliament by bringing Government action of bluff and bluster into the legislative process, huffing and puffing from Geneva to Dublin, and huffing and puffing legislation through the Dáil on a Thursday and through the Seanad on a Friday, to pass legislation and get an early signature of the President to a Bill that does not matter a thrawneen in the ultimate solution of events and matters. That is the reality and the Minister knows I am telling the truth. There is nothing extravagant in what I am saying. It is absolute factual, truth.
The sooner this Government get down to governing and not putting on an appearance of action, an appearance of government the better. That has been going on now fairly successfully for the past three years. There is no question about it. The massive appearance of activity has been there, hopping on and off planes, from Bangkok to Geneva to Dublin, and a great waving of flags, a great deal of headline-making and speech-making. The reality behind the facade is very sad. The reality is total failure in regard to the economic management of the nation, and in regard to handling industrial relations. It is going to be left to the good sense of the trade unionists of this country to pull this Government out of the trouble into which they got themselves. The good sense of the Irish trade union movement is what really matters in this context, not the Government. That is the reality.