Deputy O'Donnell has been granted permission by the Ceann Comhairle to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 32 on today's Order Paper.
Adjournment Debate: - Post Office Disputes.
I regret that it is necessary for me once again to raise on the Adjournment the question of the appalling chaos in our postal and telecommunications services. For more than 12 months we have had strikes almost continuously and this has led to many serious and recurring stoppages in this vital service. This situation has already caused severe hardship to many sections of our community. There is no doubt that irreparable damage is being done to the commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors. Jobs have been lost, export markets disrupted and, in some parts of the country, the industrial and commercial life has been brought almost to a standstill. The Minister, who is also responsible for tourism, must be conscious of the adverse effect such disputes are having on the tourism industry. This is the peak period for booking holidays and I am sure the Minister is aware of the chaos and disruption experienced by travel agents, hoteliers and others engaged in the tourism industry because they are unable to post brochures and other holiday material.
I should like to illustrate the serious effect such disputes are having on industry by giving an example of how one industry is affected. In 1974 in Furbo, in the Connemara Gaeltacht, the Government, of which I was a member, established a modern computer centre. The intention was to provide employment for people with third-level education who were anxious to live there. A State investment of about £2 million was involved in this project. The project experienced some teething problems but then went very well. However, in the last 12 months the operation of the centre has been almost impossible. I am sure the Minister read in last Sunday's newspapers a story to the effect that the plant was being dismantled and transferred to Dublin because of the failure of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to ensure a continuous service. I should like to point out that the computer operates on telephone lines. It is appalling that that should happen and it is a shocking indictment of the failure of the Minister and his Department to provide a continuous and satisfactory telecommunication and postal service.
At Question Time Deputy Harte stated that as a result of this dispute the North-West was virtually isolated. I know of many industries and business concerns who are faced with impossible situations, particularly in the last fortnight. We are now faced with the prospect of the dispute continuing indefinitely. If this situation is allowed to continue indefinitely the consequences for the economic and social life of the nation are too dreadful to contemplate. The Minister told me last week, and today, that the union should avail of the conciliation and arbitration machinery. He also told me that the union was in breach of that procedure and of the national pay agreement. One thing that must come through all this clearly is the fact that the conciliation and arbitration machinery in the Department is totally antiquated and no longer appropriate to a modern postal and telecommunications service.
Surely common sense dictates that when machinery of that kind is soon to be defective it should be re-examined with a view to streamlining it and bringing it more into line with present-day standards. There is an urgent need for a radical reorganisation of the industrial relations machinery in the Department. Some time ago the Minister acknowledged that all was not well within the Department and because of this he established a review body to examine the possibility of having off the telecommunications section to private enterprise or a semi-State body. However, we are faced with what is virtually a national crisis now because the industrial relations procedure in the Department is unsuited to modern needs.
Basically, I accept the principle that Ministerial intervention in industrial disputes should only take place when all other avenues have been adequately explored but in this dispute it is not possible to explore all avenues when the industrial relations set-up is defective. We are now faced with total deadlock in this dispute, a continuous disruption and probably an escalation and a worsening of the situation. Every day this goes on the effects will be more severe, more adverse and other parts of the country, like Donegal, will be cut off from Dublin and other centres.
I have not brought the Minister here today for the purpose of haranguing him about the situation. I have given the example of the computer bureau and I am sure there are people in numerous small and large industries whose livelihood is threatened because they cannot receive their mail and cannot be sure of making telephone calls. All the criteria for ministerial intervention are there. The Minister should intervene.
I want to clarify what I mean by ministerial intervention. How the Minister intervenes is a matter he will have to decide, but basically he has a responsibility to ensure the resumption of normal services, the improvement, streamlining and modernising of those services. The criteria are there which not merely warrant but make it imperative that the Minister take some initiative to break the deadlock.
The Government have available to them the Department of Labour who have the responsibility to ensure harmonious industrial relations. That Department have available to them a wide range of services, facilities and mechanisms for interventions in industrial disputes. The Minister should be able to call on one of these services.
I do not want to labour the point because Deputy Harte is anxious to intervene and I want to give him some of my time. I believe this deadlock should be broken, must be broken, and can only be broken at this stage through the Minister taking appropriate and immediate initiative by way of personal intervention or otherwise through facilities or machinery available to him from the Department of Labour. The country is waiting for appropriate governmental action to be taken to prevent a continuation or a worsening of this very serious national crisis.
My intervention will be brief but direct. I see this as a situation which has worsened since the Coalition left office. I concede that during the term of the Coalition there was evidence of unrest within the Department. In those days we heard people like the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs saying that if Fianna Fáil got back into office all these things would be put right. They have not been put right; they have got worse because of a lack of commitment on the part of Fianna Fáil Governments for the last 40 years to do something about telecommunications in the Republic. There is no getting away from that. The system is about to collapse. It is a shame to have to defend to visitors the type of instruments we use——
We are dealing with nothing but the dispute.
That is tied up with the conditions under which people work——
We are only dealing with the dispute. Deputy O'Donnell got permission to raise the question of the dispute. We cannot go back on the whole postal service.
I beg to differ with you.
I am asking Deputy Harte to deal with the telecommunications and the postal dispute. He is dealing with equipment, the lack and type of equipment and so on. That has nothing to do with the question before us.
I cannot understand your ruling because the dispute as I understand it as a constituency Deputy representing the people who work in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs——
The Deputy must understand that when a question is taken on the Adjournment he must stay strictly on the question and nothing else. The question asked by Deputy O'Donnell concerns the present telecommunications and postal dispute and nothing else.
I do not have very many minutes left, about four, and you are taking up a lot of my time. I am elaborating on what Deputy O'Donnell has been saying. I am dealing with it as I see it, how it effects me as a constituency Deputy, and how it affects my constituents who sent me here.
This dispute has isolated County Donegal more than any other county. It makes it impossible for a Deputy to communicate with his home or for a Deputy at home to communicate with Parliament. Last Friday week I was told if I wanted to speak to the Dáil on any matter I would have to pay double charges and have the call treated as urgent. This is all tied up in the dispute. I acknowledge that the conditions about which the Chair talks are not being debated here, but they are allied with the dispute in the minds of the people who are now on strike.
What I am saying is that not only payment is important but also conditions. I do not know how some of the young girls employed as telephonists live. Some of them get £40 or £50 a week. After paying for their accommodation and food I do not know how they survive. Many of them come from comfortable homes and could not manage but for the help they get from home. It is disgraceful that the Department keep young married men with families to rear working in such intolerable conditions.
The present commitment by the Minister and the Government is lacking in as much as the Minister told us during Question Time today that he was prepared "if certain things would fall into line". While he was saying this I thought of what Pontius Pilate said when they were crucifying our Lord, "I wash my hands of the blood of this just man". It is very nice for a Minister to stand on his dignity and say he did not cause the strike—except through inactivity. Standing on his dignity will not resolve the problem.
Like Deputy O'Donnell I am telling the Minister to forget the niceties of office, to forget all the official jargon he has given us time after time in supplementary replies and say to the people on strike "I am prepared to meet you, no strings attached. We understand the country is at a standstill".
The Minister to reply.
Are you not allowing me for the time you interrupted?
I did not interrupt the Deputy. I tried to keep him in order and to the question before the House.
I have already explained in the House the Government's position in relation to this dispute. The strike action on which the Post Office Workers' Union embarked was taken at a time when the negotiations on their claims were in progress and when procedures were available to the union for pursuing the claims. These procedures have not been exhausted. I want to emphasise that the Department did not break off negotiations and are prepared to resume discussions within the agreed procedures for conciliation. Independent arbitration by an arbitrator agreed to by all the unions in the civil service is available at any time if they are dissatisfied with progress. I have undertaken to accept the findings of the arbitrator.
It should be evident to everyone that the Department are not putting obstacles in the way of the union. I have said the Department will facilitate the union in every possible way in processing their claim quickly to a conclusion. I would have thought that the experience of recent years would have taught us that the only way to resolve industrial problems is by negotiation within agreed procedures which are there for that purpose. It is very difficult to understand why the public should have to face the damaging consequences of a strike in an important public service and the Department are saying that further conciliation negotiations are still available, as is independent arbitration. All the procedures under the conciliation and arbitration scheme and the national wage agreement, to both of which the union is a party, are there for the purpose of settling pay claims and are available.
The Government and myself are anxious that the union's pay claim should be settled on an equitable basis, that is, a basic which is fair to the staff and to the users of the Department's services. An equitable settlement must be consistent with the Department's position as the supplier of important public services to the community. It is important that Deputies and the public at large should appreciate the importance of adhering to orderly means of resolving pay claims within the civil service. I fully understand the annoyance and irritation which many people feel when public services are disrupted and I appreciate the hardships which these stoppages cause. It is precisely to provide that such stoppages should not become the norm that the Government are concerned that orderly agreed procedures should be used. It is only too easy in the face of difficulties caused by a particular dispute to call on the Minister to throw overboard these procedures, but that would cause irreparable damage. Settlement in a particular dispute on such a basis would have the most serious consequences and clearly would not be in the interests of the public or the staff.
It has been suggested by Deputies opposite who have no responsibility that I should meet the union outside the conciliation and arbitration scheme and that I could do so without adverse consequences. This shows how little they understand the problem. Under the scheme of conciliation and arbitration agreed between the Minister for the Public Service and all the unions representing staff in the civil service, both sides are committed to using the procedures laid down in the scheme for dealing with matters which are appropriate to be so dealt with. In my view it would be totally inconsistent with the provisions and the intentions of the conciliation and arbitration scheme for negotiations to take place while industrial action is in progress. All experience shows that this does not solve problems. To depart from the agreed procedures would also be contrary to the terms of the national wage agreement which expressly provides for the maintenance of industrial peace and for the processing of claims of this kind through the negotiation procedures. In such circumstances the future of the conciliation and arbitration scheme would have been gravely endangered. There would be no going back and effectively there would be no negotiation structures within which problems about pay and other matters could be peacefully resolved.
The last people I would expect to thank me for damaging present procedures in this way would be the civil service unions. It is a matter of record that over the years the conciliation and arbitration scheme has fulfilled the purposes for which it was agreed and very many claims have been settled. The scheme relates to all the unions in the civil service. The dispute which lasted all through the period of the previous administration and spilled over into mine was settled by me under conciliation and arbitration. If a new scheme is desired by any union or group in the civil service, then in consultation with the other unions and with the Minister for the Public Service a change can be made, provided that it is made with the agreement of all concerned.
The present strike action is in clear breach of both the scheme for conciliation and arbitration and the current national wage agreement. The Government could hardly be expected to consider a breach of this agreement, which binds both parties to the maintenance of industrial peace. The union claims range from 31 per cent to 51 per cent and have been presented on the basis that the staff have fallen behind in relation to comparable workers elsewhere. It is not sufficient simply to submit claims. These claims must be justified. Where it is claimed that the staff have fallen behind comparable workers, the extent to which they have fallen behind must be substantiated. The union and the Department have discussed these claims at a number of meetings and substantial offers have been made which in the view of the Department more than meet the argument about comparability and productivity and the other factors which the union have put forward. Arbitration is available if the union are not satisfied with the Department's assessment.
The staff concerned have received all the increases provided under the national wage agreement and will be receiving final payment under the current agreement with effect from today. Increases over and above the increases in the national wage agreement are not precluded, but must be properly supported in accordance with the various criteria laid down in the national wage agreement. To concede unjustified increases would entail imposing unjustified costs on the post office users and would also be a recipe for inflation. If the case is brought before the arbitrator, I will accept his decision.
I have already appealed to the union and to the staff to end their action and I would again make that plea. I assure them that all the facilities available under the conciliation and arbitration scheme and the national wage agreement are available to them. They can come back to conciliation if they have further argument to put forward or they can go to arbitration if they are dissatisfied with the Department's offer. This is still the best and only advice I can give them. I do so in the conviction that this is the way in which a satisfactory settlement can be reached and their own and the public interest safeguarded.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 6 March 1979.