Public Sector Pay: Motion [Private Members]

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — the Government allowed the Public Sector Pay agreement to expire in June 2026, leaving over 400,000 workers with no collective pay agreement for the first time since 2010; — since then, across the public service, trade unions have balloted their members, and there has been overwhelming support in favour of taking industrial action; and — no provision was made in Budget 2027 for pay rises in the remainder of 2026, while inflation has reached 4.1 per cent; agrees that it is economically and fiscally reckless for the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to have allowed a situation to develop where there is no pay agreement that ensures certainty for both workers and the State; recalls that: — the last time there was a nationwide public service strike was in 2009, under a Fianna Fáil Government; — the Government has repeatedly given in to the demands of narrow sectoral interests and lobbyists through the last two Budgets, and in response to fuel protests; and — Budget 2026 failed to index PAYE tax rates, bands and credits, and the changes this year still leave workers cumulatively behind; further recalls that: — as part of the last pay agreement, there was provision for the first phase of a 1 per cent local bargaining increase from 1st September, 2025, to be followed by 2 per cent in the next successor agreement; — there have been significant delays in the implementation of these agreed increases, leading to growing frustration and anger in affected sectors; and — there have also been similar delays in the implementation of previous agreed commitments and Labour Court recommendations, and this has damaged trust; recognises that talks on a new agreement must clearly prioritise pay from the outset, and the Government has not demonstrated a credible approach that properly addresses the growing cost-of-living pressures facing public sector workers; regrets that: — the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation has resorted to lecturing public sector workers in his Budget Day speech, and blaming trade unions for his failure to meaningfully engage on future pay; and — comments by the Taoiseach have further inflamed the dispute; and calls on the Government to: — drop their arbitrary preconditions, and commit to engaging, in good faith, with the trade unions representing public sector workers; and — commit that future pay increases will, at a minimum, protect the pay of public sector workers against inflation. At the outset, I want to acknowledge one important fact. That is the fact the Minister, Deputy Chambers, is in the Chamber this afternoon. We recognise that and we trust and hope his presence and his willingness and openness to personally respond to this Labour Party motion demonstrates that finally and, dare I say it, belatedly, he is serious about doing what my Labour Party colleagues and I, and the trade union movement, know is necessary to allow the prospect of the beginning of the end of the public sector pay dispute to come into view. I welcome to the Gallery trade union colleagues who represent 300,000 public sector workers in dispute with the Minister because he is, in effect, their employer. There are many public sector workers across the country watching proceedings and watching the Minister's every word and action very closely to discern any perceptible changes to his tone and demeanour that might show some evidence he is prepared to establish his bona fides, repair broken trust with the workers on whom we depend to deliver health, education, welfare and council services and, importantly, make a credible move toward meaningful engagement between trade unions and his Department. The Minister has the guts of 24 hours to make a substantial and substantive proposition that would at the very least create acceptable conditions to allow the beginning of the end of this nationwide dispute to hover into view. This is an extremely narrow window and this is, as the Minister knows, a sensitive time. I urge the Minister to take the opportunity in this Chamber this afternoon to do two things. First, he should extricate himself from the hook on which he has hung himself and clarify unequivocally and with a clarity incapable of being misinterpreted that it is his intention, in the next few hours, to announce a process and framework that will explicitly prioritise the conclusion of what I might term a landing zone on public sector pay increases, above all else and early. Second, we want him to commit to the principle contained in the motion that any process in which he invites the trade unions to engage will, from the off, establish the principle that pay increases for public and civil servants will see their pay outpace inflation in any prospective agreement. Our motion seeks to be helpful. It is not our role or the function of the Dáil to negotiate for anyone - that is established - or to set down specific proposals that ought to be included in any new agreement. That is the job of trade union negotiators on behalf of their members and it is the job of the Minister and his officials. I have no interest in engaging in the minutiae of that. Rather, the motion sets out the broad principles that the Minister and everyone knows need to be conceded to allow the space to emerge for substantive talks to commence. We are a serious party. As a serious party with a serious, well-established commitment to our public service, the institutions of the State and the proper functioning of the State, and as a party that uniquely values work and the dignity and material conditions of working people, we have a responsibility to propose solutions, and we do. I do not say this in a gratuitous way but the Minister has a major job to do to restore trust with working people in the public service and across the board. The last few months have not represented this Government's finest hours in terms of its relationship with working people. It allowed, for the first time in 40 years, a national agreement to expire with no serious effort to get real and make a deal on a successor agreement. That it sleepwalked towards the first mass public sector strike in close to 20 years raises serious questions about the Government's commitment to working people and public services. This was already in doubt arising from the Government's decision to give the two fingers to PAYE workers in budget 2026 in favour of the burger barons whose addiction to low pay knows no bounds. It was further questioned after last week's budget, the self-labelled, self-described workers' budget that was nothing of the sort. Please stop straining to tell PAYE workers that indexation for wage growth is a tax cut. It is nothing of the sort and it is an insult to the intelligence of working people across the country who are in no mood to forgive and forget. Last week's budget could have represented a genuine effort to change the mood music. It held out the prospect of even a reassessment of industrial action, potentially, but working people had a good look at it, as had their trade unions, and said, "There's little in this for us." Politics and leadership are about taking responsibility and being accountable. The Minister's actions last April, when he and his Government colleagues signed a blank cheque for those who challenged the very authority of the State and told the public sector workers, who play by the rules, work with their trade unions and have no option but to pay their taxes and abide by the law, to get to the back of the queue and, in recent weeks, to take their democratically mandated strike with them, changed the rules of engagement. That was a fateful insight into how the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government of 2026 works. The Minister needs to start delivering for public sector workers and he needs to do so now.

Hear, hear.

The Minister is pretty famous at the moment - "infamous" might be a better word. Standing at a picket line yesterday with people from across Tipperary, I was very taken with a young woman, a single mother with two kids, who was on the picket line beside me. She told the story of how, if this goes on another week, it will financially affect her, but she has to do it because she has to stand up for the fact her wages are, in effect, decreasing. She had to explain to her children, who have not reached their teenage years, that there will be sacrifices in what they can spend because of this. She is losing a day's pay and, depending on what the Minister does in the next few hours, she could be losing another day's pay and potentially even more. I have thought about her a lot since then and I want the Minister to think about her. She was one of 300,000 people out on the picket line with all of us yesterday. Labour Party representatives spent our whole day on the picket line with our colleagues in the trade union movement because that is what we are all about. The Minister cannot treat these people with the disrespect he has treated them with to date. Very few people who have sat in the Minister's position have let 300,000 people out on strike. It has been more than 20 years since it last happened. The Minister needs to regain some form of trust here by dealing with the issue of pay as the number one issue, by ensuring previous agreements are honoured and by making a commitment that, given the world we live in, public sector workers will not be worse off and everything will be inflation-linked. If the Minister cannot come to the table and make those commitments, then I am afraid that the fantastic woman and amazing worker I mentioned - a public servant to whom he has a duty - will be out on the picket line next Wednesday and further on. The Minister has a big 24 hours ahead of him. In fact, he has a big six hours ahead of him.

As my colleague has said, now is the time for the Minister and his Government to undo the miscalculations they have made over the past number of months in relation to the public sector. I believe they calculated that the public sector would not get the support of other workers in the economy. Anybody who was on the picket line yesterday or around our towns and villages will know that was not the case, such was the level of support from workers who are not in unions. Those who are unable to be in unions because they work in industries where unions are shut out are thankful that there are other workers in the economy who can speak for them and can express, through their trade unions, their concerns about the cost of living and the unfairness of Irish society. In an Ireland that is so rich but where so many people feel so poor, workers yesterday were able to go to the picket line and express that in their own names and in the names of their fellow workers. That was the solidarity I saw yesterday and that is one of the miscalculations the Minister made. One of the Minister's other miscalculations was that, in the words of the Taoiseach, this would be a strike for strike's sake, as if there was an appetite for some kind of frivolous action that the unions and workers just wanted to get out of their system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every worker I spoke to yesterday and in the days leading up to the strike had thought deeply about this action. They have not done this for nearly 20 years. This was a big day and a big decision for them. Again, it was a real miscalculation by the Government. That has led to a huge lack of trust; a level of trust that has to be rebuilt, led by the Minister and the Taoiseach, as soon as possible. If that is not rebuilt, there will be no hope of pay talks going ahead and achieving a successful outcome. The Minister said his budget was a "budget for workers". Again, that was refuted in the strongest possible terms on the picket line yesterday. No worker on that picket line felt that a budget that cut capital gains tax to such a degree was a budget for workers. The Minister said the Government had listened to the feedback about budget 2026. Again, nothing could be further from the truth in terms of what we heard on the picket lines yesterday. Deputy Kelly is right when he says that the Minister, Deputy Chambers, is famous at the moment and not in a way anyone wants to be. He needs to get his arms around this and needs to do what many Ministers in his position have done previously. For 40 years we had been covered by public sector pay agreements until the Minister's term. In bountiful times and in the hardest times, we always engaged with trade unions and with workers and had pay deals in place. That is the biggest, most damning indictment of the Minister and his Government. As one worker said to me yesterday, Fianna Fáil - the architects, in their own words, of social partnership - are not even able to engage on a public sector pay deal at a time when we are nearly €10 billion in the black. It may be an ideological shift or it may be incompetence, but either way the workers are absolutely furious and they lack trust in the Minister and his Government.

I thank my colleague, Deputy Nash, for proposing this important motion. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Chambers, to the House. It is very important he is here. Most importantly, I welcome our colleagues from public sector unions who are in the Visitors Gallery for this debate, including my own union, the Irish Federation of University Teachers, IFUT, which is represented here. We are so glad and so proud to stand with public sector workers and their union representatives. Indeed, I and my Labour Party colleagues spent much of yesterday literally standing with public sector workers on picket lines around the country. In my own constituency of Dublin Bay South I stood with picketers outside schools, hospitals, colleges, cultural institutions, Government Departments and here in Leinster House to support workers. As the Minister will be aware, the outpouring of public support for them was extraordinary. People were cheering, motorists were beeping and schoolchildren were waving. Even the sun shone for them. We saw an enormous display of support for all those who were out on what were extremely disciplined, professional and democratically organised pickets. The 300,000 workers who took to the picket lines yesterday have the respect of the public. Unfortunately, they do not have the respect of the Government because the Government’s approach to trade unions, their members and the workers who keep our public services going has been appalling and disrespectful. Recklessly, they allowed the public sector pay agreement to expire in June without any contingency plan, it seems, and without any successor in place. The Minister's colleagues even took to the airwaves implying that public servants had taken strike action "for the sake of it". It was deeply disrespectful. Last week, the Government's so-called "workers' budget" narrowed the tax base, cut taxes on wealth and offered a public sector package that would barely cover a 2.5% increase at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is biting deeply and inflation is running at nearly 4% and rising. The country has never had more money, but one in five children lives in poverty. Many of their parents have what used to be known as good public sector jobs but are finding now that this is no longer a guarantee of a good life or even a basic quality of life. We all heard stories from people on the picket lines yesterday. A few have really stayed with me. One young teacher in her late 30s is still living with her parents because she simply cannot afford a place of her own to rent or buy. A young child was out on the picket line because his school was closed, looking for fair pay for his mother. Perhaps most poignantly, care home residents well into their 80s and 90s were outside in their wheelchairs to support the healthcare staff who care for them and who they recognise as not being paid adequately for the important work they do. People have nothing left to give, and the Minister has not given them an inch. Government praise for public servants rings hollow without the offer of fair pay and good faith negotiations. As I have said this week, pay talks must do what they say on the tin. They must prioritise pay from the word "go", as the unions have asked and as our motion today makes clear. They must look to protect public servants against the cost-of-living crisis and against rising inflation. We all know how much public servants do. They go above and beyond but you cannot run a country on goodwill alone. Workers know that. Their unions represented here today know it and the public knows it. It seems the Government has been slow to realise it. That is why we now need from the Minister - I hope we will get it this afternoon - an indication that there will be honest and meaningful engagement from him in order to avert the prospect of next week's strike action. We are conscious of and welcome the more positive and conciliatory tone. I know the union leadership has also indicated they see a pathway to progress in the next 24 hours. This period is crucial. If meaningful engagement is not forthcoming from the Minister and the Government, and if progress cannot be made today, as Deputy Nash has said, we in the Labour Party will be standing again on the picket lines next week with our colleagues, with the public sector workers and with their unions. The depth of feeling out there is extraordinary. People are so supportive of public servants who they recognise as needing to see this honest and meaningful engagement from the Government. We urge the Minister to do the right thing now, make that positive step and reach out to the unions.

I thank the Minister for being here. My frustration about what has transpired here over the past couple of days and weeks is simply that the message that has gone out there, certainly to the workers I spoke to in Limerick yesterday - the public sector workers who are the bedrock of our economy and society and who built this country, effectively - is that if you go through the legitimate industrial relations mechanism of the State, do everything properly, join a union, ballot for industrial action and have to go out on strike because the Government let your pay agreement expire, then you are effectively ignored. You are ignored by this Government and by the Minister. That is what I am picking up and it is something I have certainly felt. These people who are out on strike - all 300,000 of them - did the right thing. They are doing absolutely everything by the book and effectively all they are getting back from the Government is tumbleweed. I got into politics because I believe in the dignity of work. I believe in the dignity of a good job with decent working conditions. It should be a basic principle that the State be a decent employer. The State should set the standard for employment in this country. It is not even that people deserve a pay agreement that delivers an increase above inflation but that they need one because they cannot afford to live. I met many people on the picket lines yesterday who struggle to afford the basics because, for a variety of reasons, including some that are international, which I acknowledge, the cost of everything has gone through the roof. With regard to the budget, I saw a leaflet from Fine Gael the other day that stated: "Budget 2027 - Work Hard, Get Ahead". For the public sector workers I spoke to yesterday, the slogan on those budget leaflets should have read, "Work Hard, Get a Kick in the Head", because the fact of the matter is that the budget was not a budget for workers. The vast majority of measures in the budget had very little to do with work. That is a fact. As the line Minister in the Department, Deputy Chambers has had time since June to set out the broad parameters of a new pay agreement and to make sure that the 1% from September 2025 was actually implemented. In many cases, it has not been. What yesterday showed more than anything is that there is power in a union. The message that needs to go out there is that people should join their trade union and make sure they are unionised because trade unions effectively built this country. They are the backbone of the public service and the public service is the backbone of the country. I really hope that, when the Minister responds to the motion, he will come forward with something substantive because none of us want this place shut down next Wednesday. None of us want 300,000 workers out on strike and losing pay during an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all the words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "recognises that: — public servants make a vital contribution to the delivery of public services across the State; and — the best means of securing improvements in pay and conditions is through negotiation and agreement, thereby avoiding disruption to public services and to those who rely on them; notes that: — the Government remains fully committed to the established collective bargaining framework for the public service; — the Public Service Agreement 2024-2026 delivered cumulative pay improvements of 9.6 per cent, exceeding cumulative inflation of 6.6 per cent over the period; — successive public service agreements have provided a stable framework for industrial peace, pay improvements, and public service reform; — the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and his officials, have consistently stated their willingness to commence negotiations on a successor agreement, and have made clear that all issues raised by unions and staff associations can be discussed within that process; — extensive efforts have been made by the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and his officials, to facilitate the commencement of negotiations; — the Government remains committed to the full implementation of the agreed local bargaining framework, with engagement between the parties identifying pathways to resolve a range of local bargaining issues, through established industrial relations mechanisms at local level; — Budget 2027 provides €1.2 billion to support a successor public service pay agreement; and — Budget 2027 also includes a range of measures to support household incomes and living standards; regrets that the planned strike action on Wednesday, 14th October, will cause great disruption to the public, especially the most vulnerable in our society, and also result in an avoidable loss of income for public servants; and calls for: — all strike action to be postponed and for all parties to engage in immediate and intensive discussions under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission, and that pay can be considered as a priority alongside other matters within these discussions; and — all sides to work towards the early conclusion of a fair, sustainable and affordable successor public service agreement.". I welcome the opportunity to address the motion. We have tabled a countermotion because we believe the best way to resolve the current dispute is through engagement and negotiation but I do note the constructive suggestions and remarks made by colleagues in the Labour Party, who spoke to the concerns of people who were on picket lines yesterday regarding the cost of living and the pressures they are under. I also acknowledge the representatives from public sector unions who are here. At its core, this debate is about how we secure a new public service pay agreement and how we ensure that public servants continue to receive fair pay increases through a stable and proven system of collective bargaining. Our counter-motion recognises the huge and valuable contribution made by public servants throughout the State. It reaffirms the Government's commitment to collective bargaining. It recognises that pay and cost-of-living pressures can and should be considered from the outset of negotiations. It notes the substantial provision made in budget 2027 to support a successor public service agreement. It calls on all parties to engage constructively in negotiations without delay. The Government's position is that we are ready to negotiate, ready to engage and ready to agree a fair, sustainable and affordable successor public service agreement. Importantly, all issues can be addressed through that process. There is no issue that cannot be discussed as part of negotiations on a successor agreement. My officials and I have consistently stated that all issues raised by unions and staff representative associations can and should be discussed as part of negotiations on a new agreement. That includes pay, cost-of-living pressures and any other matters that the parties wish to bring forward. I have confirmed Government's willingness to prioritise pay in talks. Nobody wants to see workers on picket lines, least of all the workers themselves, as was mentioned earlier. I know that the nurses, teachers and public servants more widely who are taking industrial action this week would, as they said yesterday, much rather be at work delivering the essential services that communities rely on every day. There are legitimate concerns about pay and the cost of living. I respect that it is entirely appropriate that unions raise those concerns on behalf of their members but, if we are to make real progress, we need to move forward together into meaningful negotiation. The Government continues to believe that dialogue, engagement and negotiation offer the best path to resolving differences. Industrial action comes at a cost. It affects service users, disrupts public services and results in lost earnings for those participating. We welcome the confirmation from the unions that the established principle of collective bargaining will apply. In other words, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That can provide a basis for constructive engagement while ensuring all parties have the opportunity to address the issues that are important to them. The Government has made clear its willingness to negotiate, confirmed that all issues can be discussed through the established framework and set aside substantial resources for a successor agreement. In that context, I will make it clear that I want to make progress and am hopeful that it may be possible to find a way forward shortly in the national interest, in workers' interests and in the interests of the millions of people who rely on our public services. More broadly, it is important to recognise the value of collective bargaining that has operated across the public service for many years. It has delivered industrial stability, certainty for public servants, certainty for Government and certainty for the public. It has provided a structured means of addressing difficult and often complex issues and the Government remains firmly committed to that approach. The record demonstrates that successive public service agreements have delivered improvements in pay and conditions through negotiation and agreement. Most recently, the Public Service Agreement 2024-2026 delivered cumulative pay improvements of 9.6% compared with cumulative inflation of 6.6%. That outcome was achieved through the collective bargaining process and demonstrates that the established framework can and does deliver real benefits for public servants. Budget 2027 includes significant provision to support a successor public service pay agreement, which is a clear commitment and evidence of the Government's expectation that negotiations should proceed and that an agreement can be reached. In addition, budget 2027 included a range of measures designed to support living standards and household incomes more generally. Taken together, these measures demonstrate a commitment to supporting public servants, families and workers across our economy. The Government remains committed to the full implementation of the agreed local bargaining framework, which is mentioned in the motion. Engagement between the public services committee of ICTU and my officials identified pathways to resolve a range of local bargaining matters, which continue to be progressed at a local level. Those issues should continue to be addressed through those mechanisms. To be clear, we know and accept that public servants perform vital work every day in our schools, hospitals, local authorities, Departments and across the wider public service. The public relies on those services. Public servants themselves want to continue providing them. Yesterday's industrial action affected public services, families, communities and businesses across the country, underlining once again why dialogue, engagement and negotiation are our preferred route to resolving disputes. Public servants deserve certainty about the future and that certainty can only be delivered through constructive engagement and negotiation. On Tuesday, the Government issued a clear statement. It reaffirmed our commitment to collective bargaining, highlighted the substantial supports provided in budget 2027 and made clear that all matters raised by the parties can be discussed through an established negotiation process. Our message to public servants is straightforward: there is funding available for a new agreement and Government is ready to engage immediately and constructively. Dialogue and engagement remain the better path. That is how previous agreements have been reached and how meaningful pay improvements have been delivered. Negotiations require engagement, discussion and compromise. I know the Deputies want a specific update but, as this is a sensitive matter and work is ongoing, they will understand that I am not in a position to provide specific further detail at this time. However, I hope to be able to provide further details shortly and as part of an agreed way forward.

Why does every one of us stand here today? We are here because a midwife or a nurse helped bring us into this world and because a teacher or a college lecturer believed in us, even if we did not believe in ourselves at times. Council workers, civil servants and every single public sector worker across our communities and across the country always make a difference, often working behind the scenes and without the recognition they deserve. That is just a small snapshot of the tireless work our public servants do across the country. They give their time, their energy and their expertise. They go above and beyond their contracted hours because they care about the people they serve. How does this Government repay them? It tells them to dial it down and that it is deeply disappointed that it has come to this. Did the Minister think he could manipulate these workers in such a way? Does he think a few sound bites and public relations stunts when he went into talks would form a wedge between those striking people and the public? That is not what I saw yesterday on the pickets. Instead, over recent weeks, we have witnessed a deliberate attempt to drive that wedge between parents and teachers, patients and nurses, and unions and their members. When did the Minister personally invite union leaders to sit down and work towards a solution? Where was the meaningful engagement? Let me make one thing absolutely clear. The Government will not divide the workers from the public because the public is on their side. The Government has repeatedly blamed union leaders, but a trade union is not just its leadership, it is its membership. It is the hundreds of thousands of ordinary working people who stand together because they know that individually their voices can be ignored but collectively, they cannot. The trade union movement is not just Liberty Hall; it is a proud symbol of our movement. The real strength of the trade union movement is with the members themselves; 300,000 made their voices heard yesterday. They voted overwhelmingly for strike action. That mandate comes from their membership. I stood with them yesterday and I stand with them now. The Industrial Relations Act 1990, introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government - by Charlie Haughey and the then Minister, Bertie Ahern - at the time established a legal framework within which the unions operate. Now, when workers and unions act within that framework, they are being criticised for being inflexible. The Government cannot write the rules and then condemn people for following them. The responsibility for allowing this pay agreement to collapse lies with the Government. I was out yesterday supporting the picket lines in Dublin Fingal West. People were furious. They feel disrespected. They are not demanding luxuries. They are asking for a fair pay agreement that helps to put food on the table, pay their bills and make the wages last until the end of the month. Fair pay is not a privilege. It is a matter of respect and dignity to every single worker on the picket line yesterday. Their fight is our fight and we will not let this Government divide them. Up the worker.

Hear, hear.

This motion is necessary because the Government has allowed a completely avoidable crisis in public sector pay to develop. For the first time since 2010, over 300,000 public servants have been left without a collective pay agreement and not because negotiations failed, but because the Minister and the Minister for public expenditure simply let the agreement expire in June 2026 and walked away. Since then, workers across the public service have voted overwhelmingly for industrial action. That should alarm any responsible Government yet this one has chosen complacency. Budget 2027 made matters worse. No provision was made for pay rises for the remainder of 2026 even as inflation has climbed to 4.1%. Workers are being asked to absorb real pay cuts while the Government congratulates itself on fiscal discipline. It is economically reckless, socially damaging and entirely unnecessary. We have been here before. The last nationwide public service strike was in 2009 under Fianna Fáil. Today, once again, Government inaction and the Minister's inaction and disregard for workers' living standards have pushed us to the brink. This motion is about restoring certainty and restoring trust and fairness. Public sector workers deserve better and this House must demand better. Many of the picket lines I visited yesterday to express my support and solidarity to the striking workers were manned by teachers outside their schools and one thing was abundantly clear - teachers do not want to be on picket lines. They do not want to be marching outside their school gates. Teachers want to be in classrooms teaching children, doing the work they love and the work on which our society depends. The fact that we have reached this moment reflects just how frustrated, exhausted and unheard teachers and education workers have become under this Government. This dispute did not appear out of thin air. It is rooted in a simple, unavoidable reality. Teachers' and other public servants' pay has fallen behind inflation. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, ASTI, has highlighted that teachers received a 1.5% pay increase in 2026, while inflation is running above 4%. That is not a pay rise. It is a pay cut in real terms. It is a direct hit to living standards and when the Government erodes living standards year after year, when it asks people to do more with less and treats their commitment as an infinite resource, eventually, something gives. This is what has happened here. Of course, children and families are caught in the middle. School closures mean lost learning time and parents scrambling to arrange childcare or take time off work. It means stress for families who are already stretched. It means uncertainty for children who thrive on stability. No one - not teachers, parents or students - wants further disruption. The only way to avoid it is through meaningful, respectful and constructive negotiations, not delay or dismissal and not the usual Government tactic of hoping the problem will simply go away. We must also confront another uncomfortable truth. Ireland already faces serious teacher recruitment and retention challenges. Schools across the country cannot fill vacancies. Young teachers are leaving the profession or leaving the country. We cannot expect to attract and retain teachers, especially younger teachers, if their pay and working conditions continue to come under pressure. We cannot build a world-class education system on goodwill alone. We cannot ask people to dedicate their lives to children's learning while refusing to protect their ability to pay rent or buy groceries or plan for the future. This dispute goes far beyond classroom teachers. Special needs assistants, SNAs, school secretaries, caretakers, administrative staff and other education workers are essential to keeping our schools running. They are the backbone of the education system. They support children with additional needs. They keep school buildings functioning. They manage vital administration and ensure that every child who walks through the door is cared for, yet too often they are treated as an afterthought. They are underpaid, undervalued and overlooked. Fair pay and proper recognition for these workers is not optional. We now face another strike scheduled for next Wednesday. This should focus the minds in Government buildings. The Government must engage constructively with trade unions and make every effort to reach a fair and sustainable agreement before further disruption occurs - not a half-hearted gesture or a last-minute scramble but a real commitment to resolving this dispute in a way that respects workers. Supporting education workers and all public servants and protecting children's education are not competing priorities. We must do both. In fact, they are inseparable. In the context of education in this dispute, the Government cannot claim to value learning while devaluing the workers who make learning possible. This Government has a choice. It can continue down the path of neglect, hoping frustration will diminish resolve, or it can recognise the reality that a strong public service requires strong support for the people who keep it alive. Today, with this motion, we call on Government to choose fairness, stability and respect. The Minister should please listen to the people and the public servants - they are shouting loudly.

Yesterday, I stood proudly alongside our striking public sector workers on picket lines. I listened to hardworking people who did not want to be on strike. These are people who have dedicated their lives to delivering the services we all use every single day but who have been ignored by this Government and left with no other choice. These workers are on strike because they cannot afford a decent life anymore. Their wages are being eaten up by the ever-increasing cost of rent, groceries and energy bills. Their pay has increased by a measly 2% this year while inflation is running at over double that so in real terms, they are getting poorer. Despite that reality, this Government has refused to meet with their representatives to discuss a fair pay deal. It has now been four months since the last public pay deal expired. For teachers, SNAs and nurses, this has been four months of falling living standards, insecurity about the future and mounting financial pressure yet over these four months, the Government has shown absolutely no interest in finding an agreement at all. It has shown no interest in listening to workers struggling with the cost of living, no interest in engaging in meaningful negotiations and no interest in securing a fair pay deal for our public sector workers. It beggars belief that not once has the Government tried to deal with the unions in relation to this over the last four months. Instead, it tried to turn public opinion against our nurses, teachers and SNAs who just want enough money to pay their bills, to provide for their children and to have a decent future. The Government's strategy has failed miserably. People across this State support our striking workers and their fight for a fair pay deal. They know that this Government is to blame for these strikes. It is only because of the 300,000 brave workers who went on strike yesterday that the Government has changed its tune in any way. Only now has the Government conceded that the €1.2 billion set aside in the budget was only to be a starting point for a pay agreement. Only now has the Government finally indicated that pay could be the first item on the agenda. What the Government needs to do now is match words with action. It urgently needs to put together a proposal for the unions to sit down with. It needs to guarantee that pay can be the first item on the agenda. Most importantly, the Government needs to show people that it wants to protect workers' wages from increases in the cost of living. This must be the end of treating our public sector workers with contempt. They should not have to go on strike just to be treated with some basic respect from this Government. Now is the time to finally come to the table and urgently deliver a fair pay deal for our essential public sector workers. Earlier this week I heard the Taoiseach say that this was a pro-public service Government but that is certainly lost on the newly qualified nurses and midwives in Galway. I am sure they would disagree because in the audiovisual room this morning we heard from some of the dozens of newly qualified nurses and midwives who are being blocked from working in our health service because of a recruitment freeze, despite vacancies in University Hospital Galway. These graduates are committed to working in our public service and eager to care for their community. This Government must stop preventing them from doing that and ensure that they get contracts so that they can help all of those people in University Hospital Galway who require their care.

Yesterday, 300,000 public sector workers took to the streets because they had no other option. Workers do not take industrial action lightly. They take this action at great personal cost because of the severity of the cost-of-living crisis. I want to give my support to the nurses, teachers, SNAs, carers, civil servants, the fire service, local authority workers and all other public sector workers who keep our country running, day in and day out. The Minister told the public three weeks before the budget that there would be €2 billion available for public service pay and yet, on budget day, he only made €1 billion available, plus €0.2 billion for pensions. Is it any wonder trust has broken down between the Minister and the unions? Ordinary working people are struggling with sky-high mortgages, soaring energy bills and inflated grocery prices. Workers are under huge stress on the receiving end of inflation while the Government sits on a massive budget surplus and refuses to invest in the people who deliver our public services. The workers of Ireland deserve better than a Government that turns its back on them when they need it most. The Minister should have been working day and night since June to offer a fair deal to the unions and resolve this dispute. A fair pay agreement should be to the front of negotiations. Yesterday Sinn Féin stood shoulder to shoulder with our public sector workers and trade unions. Their demands are simple and fair. They need a genuine inflation-proof pay increase to keep up with the cost of living. The Minister needs a reminder that he had no problem with the Government when it signed off on 21 massive pay increases for the bosses of semi-State companies. There was €92,000 extra for the CEO of ESB and €118,000 extra for the CEO of Uisce Éireann which wastes public money on media training ahead of every Oireachtas committee appearance. He also signed off on increases for the CEOs of Bord na Móna, Dublin Port, DAA and Coillte, to name a few. Does he not think they already had enough? The Minister needs to understand the gravity of the situation and realise that workers have nothing left to give. If next week's second planned strike is to be called off, pay needs to be addressed first. We all know that further strikes will go ahead without progress on this and on better conditions for workers across the public sector, many of whom feel their incomes have failed to keep up with rising living costs.

I commend the public sector workers in Limerick and across the State for their dignified, necessary and appropriate strike action yesterday. I stand in full solidarity with these workers. Unlike what some Government leaders have cynically suggested, they did not want to take industrial action. It was a measure of last resort. Yesterday among those I met were nurses and healthcare professionals at both the Coombe and St. James Hospital. I met local authority workers at Marrowbone Lane council depot. I met teachers, SNAs and support staff at St. James's Primary School and CBS James's Street secondary school in the Liberties. I met park rangers at St. Stephen's Green and staff at the National Archives. As a proud member of SIPTU, I was happy to meet so many members of the union I belong to. These workers did not choose this path. It was forced on them by the failure of the Minister and the wider Government. Eleventh hour offers by Ministers were cynical and far too late to be considered a genuine, credible offer of talks. This industrial action has regretfully had an impact on the everyday life of many. Schools were closed and hospital appointments were cancelled. While acknowledging this, it is heartening to see the support of the wider public for these hundreds of thousands of public sector workers who want this dispute resolved and a fair deal. This is about a fair deal for the workers. Unions are open to a multi-year agreement on condition that it protects living standards. First and foremost, this is about pay. The Minister must acknowledge this and engage with the unions on that basis. In the weeks leading up to the strike, this action could and should have been averted but the Minister chose not to. He chose to engage in brinkmanship. He chose arrogance and he chose badly. This is his Government's failure. For hardworking public sector workers to be forced into industrial action so soon after Micheál Martin called the budget "a budget for workers" and for people who work hard shows how much credence workers give to these utterances. Yesterday was the largest mobilisation of workers in a generation, a demonstration of the struggles faced by workers during the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. What we saw yesterday was workers' response to a Government that has been dismissive of their concerns. The Minister needs to cop on, stop the games and ensure fair play for our healthcare professionals, educators and others.

Yesterday, I stood with public sector workers on picket lines across Waterford city and county. I met council workers, many of them members of my own union, UNITE, as well as librarians, community workers, hospital staff, nurses, doctors, paramedics, care workers, teachers, SNAs, school secretaries and caretakers, the latter two groups out on strike action not for the first time in the past year. None of these workers, as has been said here, wanted to be on strike and they do not want to be on strike again next week. They want to be at work. They want to be delivering the services that people depend on. One of the conversations that stayed with me was with Jenny and her colleagues at St. John's Special School in Dungarvan. These are people who are so dedicated to their work and to the children they serve and they want to be in those classrooms. They want to be supporting those children, not standing on a picket line. I am proud to be a trade unionist and have been a union member since I was a teenager. I know the importance of solidarity and the right to fair pay. I know the benefits and the progress that have come from collective action. Dedication does not pay the bills for these workers. Some of them do not want to say that but it is the truth. Dedication to their jobs does not pay their bills at the end of the month. Commitment cannot compensate for wages that are being eaten away by the cost of living and by the failure of the Government to address that. Yesterday demonstrated two things to me - the strength of these workers' resolve and the enormous public support that they enjoy. Their demands are legitimate. They deserve a pay deal that protects their living standards and negotiations must address pay as the priority. Unions have made their position clear. They are open to an agreement that protects workers against rising costs. This Government and the Minister have allowed this dispute to reach this point and now it looks like the Taoiseach will have to intervene because the Minister does not seem to be doing a lot. He must pick up the phone now and engage constructively with the unions and if that means going over the Minister's head, so be it. He must ensure that pay is the first item on the agenda. These workers are keeping our public services running. They deserve fair pay, respect and a Government prepared to listen and to talk.

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion. This has to stop. What has gone on here for the last number of months has to stop. This should have been sorted out months ago. It was heartening to see so many workers out there yesterday, right across the country. I send solidarity to all of the workers in Mayo, including from Mayo University Hospital, Swinford, Ballina, Belmullet, the public health nurses, the school staff and everybody else who came out together. It was heartening to see the way all of the unions and all of the workers represented by them came together. To hear the stories from people, I wonder whether there is some idea in the Government that public sector workers are somehow removed or insulated from the cost-of-living crisis. I would say that many of them are worse affected. If we look at public health nurses and SNAs, and people who have to travel in rural areas, with the mileage still the same as it was before this cost-of-living crisis, it is costing them to go to work. The Minister and the Government are saying they have been clear all along but they have been anything but clear. At 10 p.m. on Tuesday, the Minister said that pay can be first on the agenda in pay talks. It makes no sense whatsoever. I ask the Minister to be honest with people and to be upfront. Above all, I ask him to intervene and not let the strike happen next week. This will be resolved one way or another by sitting around the table, with the Minister doing the job that he has to do. He needs to do that job now, however. All of the workers on strike yesterday have gone without a day's pay. How are they going to manage at the end of the month or the end of the week? They are already dipping their oil tanks to see whether they can afford to heat their homes or whether they can afford to put food in their trolleys when going around the supermarket. They have lost a whole day's pay and some people have lost day and a half.

Yesterday I stood in solidarity with the workers. I am utterly sick to my back teeth of members of the Government doing cartwheels to avoid taking responsibility for anything under their control. I see it week in, week out at the Committee of Public Accounts. Today we learned the CEO of Uisce Éireann was paid an increase of €118,000 in one year. There is one rule for some and another rule for others. We had known for quite a time when the existing public sector deal was due to expire, yet the Minister, Deputy Chambers, seems to have only realised in recent days that this was a big deal. The Taoiseach, a politician with tenure of service and elected office, should have offered the Minister some advice or assistance. What insight or energy has he brought to resolve this pressing issue? Last night he called for a negotiated pathway. My God, are we not blessed to have such an inspiring Taoiseach? The facts of the matter are these. Either through ignorance or inexperience, the Minister has brought us to this point, we have not seen such industrial action for a generation and the public sector and Civil Service have been brought to breaking point. Our teachers, nurses, SNAs and all other public sector workers have, for far too long, been taken for granted by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. Long gone are the platitudes of the pandemic when at least they had kind words. It is now up to the Minister to abandon his preconditions, his childish brinkmanship and his play-acting. In part arising from his fake, failed workers' budget, civil servants and public servants can take no more. They cannot afford to live in this cost-of-living crisis which affects them daily.

Yesterday I was on picket lines across Dublin Fingal West. I met hard-working ordinary people who do their best every single day of the week for the public services they deliver. They are the ones at the business end of Government indifference and incompetence. They are the people who deal with the consequences of short-staffing and overcrowding and they are the ones who are left to plug the gaps and deal with the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael addiction to outsourcing. In his speech the Minister said he wanted to agree a fair, sustainable and affordable agreement. That is very laudable but these words ring fairly hollow with me, having heard this morning from graduate nurses, young women who have trained very hard through four years in college, have graduated and have in their hands a piece of paper from the Government, their employer, telling them they will have a permanent job. They know there are vacancies in the hospitals because they can go into them as agency staff, which costs one and one third time per hour. Let us do the value-for-money calculation on that. The Minister is quite prepared to pay one and one third but he will not give these young, dedicated and educated professionals a permanent job. That is not fair, it is most definitely not sustainable and, by Jesus, it is not affordable, not in anybody's language. The Minister's words ring very hollow and he needs to acknowledge there is a job of work he has to do to rebuild trust between the trade unions and him as their employer. It will not be done by changing his mind or trying to play fast and loose with words on "Prime Time". It will be done sitting across the table. I ask him to give his officials the instruction to conclude a deal and give them the money to do it.

Yesterday I stood on 21 different pickets in Cork city and county. I could not get around to all of them. A handful of grave workers stood at St. Finbarr's Cemetery and 500 yards up the road there were almost 1,000 workers outside Cork University Hospital. The one message that came from every picket line I was on is that they will not back down. The Minister will not beat the workers of Ireland because the workers have had enough of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They have said it loud and clear. They did not want to be on a picket line. The Minister drove them to the picket lines. Does he know what they said to me? They said they will drive the Government to an agreement or they will bring down the Government because they are sick and tired of being underestimated and looked down upon. The Government has looked after vulture funds, banks and developers but what about the workers? What about the backbone of this country? The Minister must stand up, talk to the unions and listen to what they say because the cost-of-living crisis is crippling people. People work all their lives. They work every hour God sends but they struggle to pay their rent or mortgage and their electricity bills. People cannot afford childcare. Does the Minister know what people have said to me? They have told me they are working every hour God sends and they have nothing left. They cannot pay their bills. They will not back down. I am proud to say I stood with the workers and I will stand with them again.

"I just get the sense now that people want industrial action irrespective of what happens." That is what the Taoiseach said. It looks like the Minister has facilitated this. It was said to me at many locations, whether at schools, with council workers or with healthcare workers at Louth County Hospital, that it looks like the Government just decided there needed to be a strike and it was going to let it happen come what may. The Minister knows he could have avoided this, even if he had used the commentary he is using today about the primary focus of negotiations being pay, but he let it happen. Like Deputy Gould, I heard from many workers who said the Government just does not get it and it needs a black eye. I told them I hope that some element of sense will prevail and we will have negotiations that matter, deliver fair pay and give some protection to those who do all the work we depend on, whether in Leinster House or in the wider world. The only thing that matters from the Minister is that we see negotiations, that there is no strike next week and then that we see delivery for the workers because they have been failed for far too long. I add my voice to what some of my colleagues have said. I have heard from some graduate nurses and midwives from Dundalk Institute of Technology who were promised they would get positions. I have spoken to the HSE locally which tells me this will be delivered, but there is still no clarity. I know a whole pile of other graduates who have worked incredibly hard and should be given the positions that we need them to fill.

I will take a moment to send best wishes, on behalf of the Social Democrats, to the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan. It is very concerning to hear that he remains in intensive care. We send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. I thank the Labour Party for putting forward today's motion on public sector pay. It is very timely, and it is important that we get an opportunity this week to discuss this issue. It is a helpful motion because it speaks to various issues, including the struggles of public sector workers which I heard about on various pickets yesterday in Dublin Rathdown. These struggles are faced by the people who help us when we are sick, who teach our children and who provide vital services throughout the country. These workers are struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table but they are also no longer willing to accept conversations on their future never being on their terms. It speaks to the pattern of broken promises when it comes to local bargaining and other aspects under the previous deal, and how this has severely undermined trust that the Government will walk its talk on commitments to workers. That is really the crucial issue here. We need follow-through on commitments from the Government, not more broken promises and spin. Every Government spokesperson I heard this week discussing this topic in the media led with how much Government values public sector workers. I want to talk about the Government's track record on valuing workers overall and workers' rights, because it has form here. Its commitments on the living wage, for example, have been quietly dropped. For sick pay, the promise of ten days that we should have had since January 2026 is nowhere near being delivered. In the crucial area of collective bargaining, instead of introducing real measures to require companies to recognise unions and to meet European standards, workers and companies across the country continue to have their unions ignored by their employers. The reason the Government does not want to come to the table on public sector pay is the same reason that it does not want to support anything but a voluntarist system in the private sector. The promises of a better future made to workers are good enough to trot out at election time for voters but they are not good enough to actually put into practice. Why should we or workers trust the Government? It is completely out of touch. Instead of engaging in good faith, we get snide defences about how much has been done and calculated attempts to paint unions and workers as the problem. In an attempt to rebut genuine criticism of the Government's failures on workers' rights, the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, last week said in the Chamber that zero-hour contracts were banned by the Government. It would not take too long to find many workers in the teaching and care sectors who will refute that statement. Yesterday, while 300,000 workers were striking, the Taoiseach was at an industry-focused AI summit, claiming that public sector jobs will not be lost to AI and that people will be freed up to engage in more critical thinking work. That is not the experience of the swathes of Irish workers who have already lost their jobs to AI. It is not the experience of workers already suffering from worse and more stressful work for the same pay and benefits, again, because of AI and other factors. As teachers, nurses, SNAs and civil servants tell the Government that their jobs are getting more difficult and that they are finding it harder and harder to do their work and put food on the table, all they can trust to hear from the Government is spin. This Government needs to step up. It needs to stop its failed campaign to turn public opinion against workers and their unions, and instead deliver on talks where pay is dealt with first and foremost. This head-in-the-sand, everything-is-fine-narrative the Government continues to push on the budget, labour displacement and meeting the challenges faced by the people who get up early in the morning is reckless and idiotic. People cannot provide for their families. Jobs are being lost. The quality of work is deteriorating and the Government will be caught on the hop unless it faces up to that. Here is an idea: listen to workers, not just employers. The Government could have listened, for example, to workers at the Communications Workers' Union alternative AI summit last weekend who discussed how they are being affected by AI. It could have listened to workers on the picket lines yesterday talking about how hard it is to put food on the table and how stressful it is to work in underfunded and overstretched services. It could listen to unions when they say that there cannot be public sector pay talks without talking about pay first. It could listen to the people on the ground who want the Government to come to the table and work out a public sector pay deal that will protect the people who keep this country running.

I thank Labour Party for this very timely motion and the opportunity to speak on public sector pay. I commend public sector workers in Cork and across the country for their industrial action and standing up for themselves and their colleagues for better pay and conditions. What we saw yesterday was the largest strike in almost 20 years. Does the Government comprehend the enormousness of the scale of the industrial action we saw, of the number of workers who were out on strike yesterday and intend to strike again? Does the Government see the huge level of public support there was yesterday? People were beeping their car horns as they went past, people were dropping off food to people on pickets and people were joining in. There is enormous support from the public for these public sector workers. The absence of any backbenchers from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for this debate is an indication perhaps that they realise the public is on the side of the workers on this one. People know the cost of living is increasing all the time. People know that people are struggling to pay rent or mortgages and they need fair pay for the work they do. In particular, the lowest-paid workers, who are struggling the most, need better pay and terms and conditions. Nobody wants to be on strike. Nobody wants to lose a day's pay. Nobody wants to be on a picket. People want to be in their classrooms, teaching children or in hospitals providing services to patients. However, they feel ignored and forgotten about by the Government and there is deep frustration among public sector workers. Many healthcare workers are concerned about the vacancies in the health service and the impact this is having on their day-to-day work. For example, the domino scheme in Cork is being curtailed because maternity leave vacancies are not being filled. Continuity of care in the gold standard midwifery community-led care is being curtailed because the health service is not filling maternity vacancies . At the same time, there are newly qualified midwives, whom we heard from in the audiovisual room, who cannot get jobs and they are deeply frustrated about that.

I, too, wish the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, all the best in his recovery. Yesterday I joined 23 pickets. I know it is not a competition but I visited quite a lot throughout the constituency, and I was really happy to do so. I went to schools, Youthreach centres, colleges of further education, prisons, hospitals and local authority buildings. I am sure I am forgetting some. I was involved in trade unions for all of my working life until I became a TD. Sometimes there can be a nervousness about going on strike because you do not know what the reception will be from the public. Overwhelmingly yesterday, the horns on cars and buses and taxis and all sorts of things did not stop for the entire day because there is huge support for this strike, with over 300,000 people striking yesterday. There was a huge sense of frustration leading up to the time, with people wondering whether or not they would be going on strike or not and workers not knowing what would happen. It became abundantly clear that things were not moving from Government to get into talks. We know what the history is, but the future is really important. The Government may not have realised that the level of support those strikers have received means that it will have to engage with them now. There is no other option. Otherwise, the Government will lose the confidence of the public. The reality is that people who were out on strike yesterday have lost a day's pay and a day of contribution towards their future pensions. People have lost out on appointments in hospitals. There are children in special schools who did not go to school yesterday. For those children, it can be particularly difficult because their routine is put out. Teachers, SNAs and other staff members, particularly of special schools, would not have taken the decision lightly. One man on the picket line yesterday told me that the cost of his home heating oil has doubled. He has only been able to half fill the tank and he is going to ration that out now until he can fill it again. This is a public sector worker. They are supposed to be able to do the fantastic job they do here for all the different services they provide and in return be able to have a good quality of life, except one part of that deal is not being kept by the Government. I urge the Government to get into talks with the unions. We can all talk about it here, on the radio and on TV and stand on picket lines but what needs to happen is Government and the unions in rooms for full conversations to make sure we can sort this out. I would caution that whenever this agreement starts and whatever date it will finish in however many years time, that it is not left until a number of months after it runs out to start those negotiations.

I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 1: To delete all words after "recognises that" and substitute the following: ": — people are suffering because of the cost-of-living crisis, as prices of goods and services have increased by 22 per cent over the past five years, and wage increases have fallen behind inflation; — public sector unions estimate that the gap between inflation and the pay of the average public servant over the past five years is at least 5 per cent; — the pressure on living standards has continued into 2026, with public servants receiving increases amounting to an average pay increase of around 1.5 per cent across the year, while annual average inflation has accelerated to 4.1 per cent; — the public sector pay agreement expired in June, leaving over 400,000 workers with no collective pay agreement; — since then, public sector trade unions have balloted their members, and there has been overwhelming support in favour of taking industrial action; — the unions have said that if the Government would agree to a structured approach to dealing with pay, then the unions can move on to negotiate on other issues like AI, remote working and outsourcing of services; and — the Government has not given this entirely reasonable commitment, and instead has created deliberate confusion by claiming that unions have been unwilling to engage in pay negotiations; notes that a multi-millionaire' tax on the wealthiest 1 per cent can raise the additional revenue required to meet the cost of pay increases for public sector workers; and calls on the Government to: — engage in pay talks with public sector trade unions in good faith, without pre-condition, and with pay dealt with up front; and — agree a pay increase that restores the real value of wages eroded by inflation in recent years, provides for protection against ongoing inflation, and further provides a real increase in public sector workers' wages.". Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where the contribution of ordinary workers and public sector workers is recognised very much and it is certainly not celebrated. Instead, what we hear through the media, from the Government, is generally a celebration of those who are at the top, the top executives, the likes of the 36 executives compared to one trade unionist who were speaking at the AI summit yesterday. However, yesterday's strike showed the reality that it is workers, with public sector workers at their heart, who make our society run. The first thing I heard when I got up yesterday was the presenter on "Morning Ireland" saying they had no weather forecasts because Met Éireann was in an industrial dispute. There was no Dáil because it is not us - not the Government or the TDs - who make the Dáil run; it is all these workers who make it run. Our streets were really dirty by the end of yesterday because it is street cleaners who keep them clean. There were no schools and colleges, and massively reduced operations in hospitals. Everywhere I went, there was a public sector picket line. What is often invisible work became very visible. These are the people who make our society work and they are so undervalued. Government Members hoped that with this strike action a division might open up between public sector workers and private sector workers and they could play the old divide-and-rule tactic. They have had to recognise that simply is not working because the other thing that was so striking at every picket line I passed was the beeps of drivers going past. Public support was overwhelming because people get it that public sector workers, just like private sector workers and others in our society, are really struggling to afford petrol, home heating oil and electricity. They cannot get by. Their wages are falling behind because of the cost-of-living crisis. They need and deserve a decent pay rise and a win for the public sector workers will be a win for everybody. The other thing that struck me on the picket lines was the extent to which people felt disrespected, in particular by the Taoiseach's comment about workers wanting to be on strike, by the Minister's refusal to meet with union leaders for months and by the fact outstanding elements of the previous agreement still have not been implemented. The first worker I spoke to was an intensive care nurse. He was genuinely upset to be on the picket line. He said he spent 63 days at the start of Covid without seeing his kids or his wife because he could not expose them. He was on the front line. What did he get? He got applause and his pay fell behind. The other thing we saw yesterday was the strength of workers. It put manners on the Government. We have humble pie being eaten by the Minister and a change of tone. A change of tone is not enough. The workers were not on strike yesterday for there to be talks; they were on strike to get meaningful pay increases that go beyond the rate of inflation. That is what they were on strike for and that is what is necessary to solve this.

What makes the world go round? Workers do. We saw that on display yesterday. I went to about 15 picket lines - people from the national museum, the Irish lights, the councils, teachers, SNAs, people in further education, health workers of all the different grades, and the list just goes on. You could not move without seeing a picket yesterday and it shows the importance of public sector workers to making our society function. It also shows something I hope workers felt: the power they have to make their voices heard. The truth is the Government has taken workers for granted. All the effort that has helped deliver the economic success the Government often boasts about actually comes from the hard work of workers, yet the Government wants to keep a lid on their earnings to the point they are losing income. That is at the heart of it. We can talk percentages till the cows come home but the fact of the matter is workers know they are being asked to do more for less and they are struggling to do the basics, put a roof over their head and pay their bills. That is not acceptable. The big question I ask, and that workers should ask, is: when the Government says it cannot completely protect people from the cost-of-living stuff, how is it that it can do it for the rich and for the profits of corporations? I am sick and tired of saying it. During the period that workers have lost 5% of their income - more when this year is taken into account and even more if they do not get an inflation-busting pay increase - profits have gone up by 150%. The numbers of billionaires and multimillionaires have increased dramatically. How is it their wealth and profits can go up and the Government can find more tax breaks for them in the recent budget, but apparently it cannot give ordinary workers a decent pay increase just to keep pace with inflation? The divide-and-rule tactic failed. The Government consciously tried to play public off against private but every worker knows that if the public sector wins a decent pay increase, they will have the inspiration and example to go and get the same. That is what we need. We need the determination and bravery we saw on the picket lines from workers the length and breadth of the country to demand decent pay increases from a Government that only represents the profiteers and super-wealthy of this country.

Yesterday, public sector unions took the only course of action open to them. Thousands of their members went on strike. In County Laois, there were not just pickets; there were crowds on the picket lines, from the council to the hospitals, the prison and the Departments. I was proud to stand with workers from the three health unions. Workers expressed total frustration at the Government's failure to fully implement previous pay agreements. They were also frustrated by Government delay in beginning substantive talks and putting pay front and centre and by its failure to recognise the cost-of-living pressures they are under. Why did the Government not get into talks prior to June, when the previous pay agreement ran out? Why has there been no meaningful engagement or realistic proposal over the past four months? Then we had a budget tabled by Government that was supposed to be for workers, but it was not. It was a sprinkle in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Middle- and low-income households got crumbs, according to Social Justice Ireland's analysis, and workers on €30,000 or below actually lost money. Any new agreement has to favour low- and middle-income workers in the public sector and percentages should be higher for them than for those at the very top. The €1.2 billion earmarked in the budget for public sector pay will not be enough to keep workers up with the rising cost of living. This is because of the cost of essential outgoings such as rent, mortgages, insurance, electricity, gas, oil, transport and motor fuel. Today, the day after the strike, what did we learn? Niall Gleeson, CEO of Uisce Éireann, gets a pay rise of €118,000, so he is now on €391,000-plus. Workers in the public sector are reasonably well organised, and rightly so. They have some bargaining power. Unfortunately, those in the private sector do not, with 82% not even in a trade union. Government has a responsibility to legislate for collective bargaining and union recognition by all employers but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have refused to do this over the years. In the current programme for Government, there is a watery commitment to publish an action plan. The plan is even more watery than that. It states the Government will "conduct comprehensive research on the coverage and impact of collective bargaining" and will "collaborate with academic and policy researchers". My God almighty, that is a policy and a plan for inaction. Governments have commitments under EU directives. Workers need the right to combine in a trade union and to be represented by one. This is very much the case in the private sector. Unfortunately, when some of them try to join a trade union, they are pressurised out of the job by their bosses or sacked. The solution to the public sector pay dispute is straightforward: Government needs to make clear there are no preconditions, that there will be a substantial offer on the table in relation to pay that favours middle- and low-income workers and that increases will keep workers ahead of inflation and rising prices. Will the Minister please catch up with the rest of Europe and legislate for collective bargaining and the right of all workers to be represented by a trade union?

The scenes I witnessed yesterday were phenomenal. It was the biggest strike I have seen in my lifetime. I drove across County Mayo and attended many pickets. I stood shoulder to shoulder and was proud to be with hard-working men and women across Ireland, who work incredibly hard to deliver for our society and for the economy. What struck me most when I stood with those strikers, and when I stood outside Mayo University Hospital with the nurses, the doctors and the clerical staff, that not one car passed without beeping to show its support. I urge the Minister not to make the same mistake the Government made with the fuel protests when it tried to conquer and split the crowd and called them all sorts of names. That is what he is doing here as well. These people are fighting for what is right. There has been an enormous erosion of their salaries over the past number of years, and the Government has done little to address it. I spoke to nurses and clerical staff yesterday, and among the stories I heard was that of a young woman, a single woman in her late 30s, who explained to me that, on the salary she is on, she will never be able to afford a home. That is what is driving much of this crisis and these strikes. The Minister has completely failed to address the escalating prices in the economy and, as a result, workers are right to demand that their wages reflect what is happening. Another young couple, two nurses, explained to me that they will never be able to afford to purchase a home under the current circumstances. It is devastating. The Minister has done nothing to address the massive difficulties that are happening, particularly in housing. I have been raising the lack of affordable housing in Mayo since I was elected to Mayo County Council, and there has been almost no delivery, no help and no assistance for those workers. I remember a time, not too long ago, when a young person could go to college, get a job in the public service, become a nurse, a teacher or a clerical staff member in the local authority, and be able to put down roots, build a home in County Mayo, purchase a home in Ireland, get married and build a future. Those young people are now struggling to get by. Indeed, many I met were well into their 30s and still living at home because they could not afford otherwise. I spoke to nursing managers, nurses and staff in the emergency department of the hospital yesterday. The wages and the high cost of living are having such an impact that they outlined to me that they cannot retain staff. Is it any wonder there are 7,000 Irish medics living and working in Australia? That is the result of the Government's policies. I urge the Minister to engage proactively with public sector workers and the unions, to recognise the cost pressures people are under and to recognise that the erosion of people's salaries must be addressed in these talks. I urge the Minister to engage meaningfully over the coming days and avoid the strike that is due to take place next Wednesday, because none of the nurses, teachers or officials I met yesterday wants to be out striking. They want to be back at work. They want to get back and do their jobs. Indeed, many left the strike in the rain yesterday, worried about their patients, and went back to check on them. That is the type of public service we have.

It is unbelievable that the Government allowed the public sector pay deal to lapse in June of this year, leaving more than 400,000 public servants without a collective pay deal for the first time in roughly 15 years. There is a lot of ground to make up, as others have said, because trust has been damaged and previous commitments have not been honoured or, where they were honoured, they were delayed. No wonder people were out striking in their multiples, as I saw yesterday. They are impacted by the clear reduction in the purchasing power of take-home pay, thanks to general inflation allied with the exponential increase in the cost of fuel, the causes of which we know are global. However, these price increases affect people differently depending on where they live and what options they have. Many people do not have alternatives to fossil fuels, so people are collectively struggling. This is why the Government could have and should have agreed to enter meaningful negotiations without preconditions, to look at correcting the historic imbalances and then to ensure that future pay rises at least match inflation, because we have to protect workers' living standards and avoid industrial unrest, which affects our competitiveness in any event. No one wants to be out on strike. I get that it is hard to do year-on-year pay deals in exceptional global circumstances, where things are literally changing day by day, but we need an agreed process, and people need to have faith in that process. This affects all workers in the public sector, whom the Government has taken for granted over the years. I reiterate something I said before, that there also needs to be a separate measure for front-line workers, especially those posted in high-cost areas, where the salary might be the same across the country but the costs are not. If we want to retain our best and brightest rather than lose the teachers, gardaí, nurses and so on to the United Arab Emirates, Australia, New Zealand or even across the water to England, we need to make sure people feel valued. In this context, I refer to an audiovisual presentation this morning by nursing and midwifery graduates who, unfortunately, have been blocked from employment. I was told it is a postcode lottery but, essentially, even though the graduates were promised jobs, restrictions and cutbacks in the HSE have taken the offers away and left them in limbo. Some of them are dependent on social welfare and many are actively looking at travelling abroad. The first action taken by the HSE, at least at local level, appears to have been to reduce or stop offering these permanent contracts to newly qualified nurses and midwives, largely as a fiscal measure to prevent budgets from being exceeded. This is an argument, for example, for why we need multi-annual budgeting in any event. This is happening despite the health service's continued dependence on agency staff to fill vacancies, and we know that agency workers often cost a lot more than directly employed staff. It is at least 20% more in many cases. Although, and credit to the Government in this regard, the number of nursing and midwifery graduates has increased, permanent employment opportunities have not kept pace. The failure to provide these career pathways and employment opportunities sends a negative message to graduates after years of study, sacrifice and service. We know our Irish-trained nurses and midwives are highly regarded internationally and are highly sought after and actively recruited by health systems around the world. Without secure employment prospects at home, there is a real risk that the newly qualified professionals will be the next generation going abroad, exacerbating existing staffing shortages. Every single year, the Irish taxpayer heavily subsidises the training of our fantastic nurses, midwives and teachers, yet the moment they graduate, we are forcing them onto planes to Australia, the UK and Dubai. To fill the void, the State spends millions on overseas recruitment packages, relocation allowances and astronomical agency fees. However, it is deeper than that. I asked this week whether a full cost-benefit analysis had been carried out on the overall cost of this, and it has not. The Government is operating in different silos with blindfolds on. We are exporting our own youth to import a workforce, and we do not assess, let alone count, the cost of this, whether that is the cost of funding family reunifications, added infrastructure strains, creating thousands of new school places, and language supports and assistance that are already overstretched. We are paying the upfront accommodation allowance for overseas staff and so are artificially inflating rents when we already have a broken rental market that drove our graduates away in the first place. All these overseas staff do a fantastic job and they are necessary but they should be supplementing our service, not holding it up. We have the highest proportion of foreign-trained nurses in the entire OECD. In 2024, it was 54% of practising nurses. That is an absurd percentage in the context of our commitment to train more home-grown nurses. It is penny-wise and pound-foolish. We should pay all public sector workers a decent wage so it does not fall behind inflation, and cut the unnecessary costs in the system to make up for it.

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta Gogarty agus an rud céanna a rá faoi na haltraí agus na mná ghlúine trasna na tíre, some of whom came to the House. Yesterday, I visited the pickets across my constituency. I spoke with teachers, nurses, SNAs, healthcare workers, local authority staff and other public servants. A lot of them would have known me and would have known my age and were around my age as well. They told me exactly what they wanted me to raise to the Chamber. It is obvious that it is about a lot more than just pay. They discussed with me the pressures they are under in the services they are trying to keep running, and the feeling that their concerns are not being heard. These are the people who keep this country going. Yesterday, it was sad that they felt they did not have any choice other than to protest. Something should have been done beforehand. I refer to one of the main issues in our schools. Teachers speak about growing class sizes and increasingly complex needs. I have raised this multiple times in regard to the schools that were promised across my constituency. I welcome that Gaelcholáiste Reachrann has gone to tender. I welcome also that the NCSE has received the submission for an additional classroom at the Stapolin Educate Together but when schools are providing the care students need and the staff are willing to provide it, we should be facilitating those schools. One school I have not spoken about before is Killester Park Educate Together national school. In regard to enrolment, on occasions since I have been in this House, the school has been eight pupils below its original projection and the Department has withdrawn a mainstream teacher from the post, and I spoken to all the teachers and the principal. The result is that fifth and sixth classes are combined into one class of 35 children. That goes against the programme for Government that I signed up to and the ratio we are trying to get to. Many of the children in those classes have additional educational, behavioural and emotional support needs. The school is not objecting to multi-grade teaching - I know this happens when numbers are too low - but it is asking a very reasonable question about how one teacher can give 35 children, many of them with complex needs, the additional individual attention they deserve, on the same pay and without it being looked at. I will send the Minister the details of the school to see if he can do anything and to look at that specific school. This is what happens when staffing decisions are made by numbers alone. Last year I hit a brick wall with one of the other schools in my constituency. We need to re-examine teacher numbers for each school when changes happen and enrolments rise and fall. We should really examine that. Teachers have told me we need proper standards for assessments. We also need a public system that can deliver them on time. How can we expect these teachers and SNAs to meet every child's need when they do not have the resources or support to do so. I spoke already about some of the other schools. At the health centres I visited yesterday, they spoke about shortages and excessive administration. I have constantly been pushing for and submitting parliamentary questions and working on a better managed and co-ordinated approach for administration in our hospitals, similar to other countries. It is not acceptable that when a patient goes from one hospital to another the files are not there. I know the HSE is working on this but it is taking too long. Those delays are actually adding to the waiting lists and adding to the work of the administration for staff when these people should be working. Nurses want to be helping people and they should not be doing repeated and unnecessary administration work. I want to speak about our council staff, especially the people who maintain our roads. Deputies mentioned how in one day without Dublin city being cleaned, we see the amount of rubbish, waste and dirt across the city. They are asked to do much more and often without the resources to match. I refer to the cost of living. I have asked about this multiple times. My constituents in north Dublin who are public sector workers are getting the same pay but their rent is high. I understand that in the budget we did bring in income relief and other measures that will help but can we examine rent relief for public sector workers, or for any of the critical workers, to be increased based on the average rent in the area? It does not make sense for a teacher or anyone to get paid the same but pay a higher rent.

Tá áthas orm labhairt ar an rún seo inniu agus ba mhaith liom mo thacaíocht a thabhairt do gach uile duine a bhí amuigh inné. Yesterday's strike did not come out of nowhere. It was not a misunderstanding, it was not an accident and it certainly was not something that public servants rushed into lightly. When hundreds of thousands of workers vote overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action the message is clear. People believe they have exhausted every other avenue open to them. The Government now speaks about disruption but this was entirely foreseeable. We saw this level of disconnect at the time of the fuel protests, which was the time the Government did not engage or listen to people, and particularly businesses which are finding it so difficult to cope with the cost-of-living pressures, the increases in fuel and whatnot. What always strikes me about this place is that we do not hear of NGOs coming kicking and screaming for help. Billions of euro taxpayers' money is thrown out. We do, however, hear about businesses all around the country. I was at a national business women's event in Tyrrellspass. We have seen so many young people coming forward, stepping up to the mark and setting up businesses but we need more supports for those people. What happened yesterday and certainly what happened during the fuel protests should have been anticipated and foreseeable but it was not, unfortunately. The Government's priorities and its focus need to change urgently. It needs to focus on the ordinary people, the ordinary workers, and the people who create employment in this country who need more assistance. What is unbelievable is the sense that it was thought some workers would simply continue to absorb the cost-of-living pressures indefinitely, that they were to be quiet and go quietly about their work and that they would not say anything or resist in any way. Yesterday, workers were forced onto picket lines around the country. This speaks volumes. Many of these people have never been out on strike before and they felt strong enough to do that yesterday. It is a very strong message being sent to the Government. These are public servants who carried us through crisis after crisis. If we look back at the financial crisis, these public servants carried us through. They carried us through the pandemic. They carried us through many other periods of enormous strain in this State. They carried our health services, our schools, our local authorities and our public administration through periods of enormous strain, difficulty and challenges. The Government certainly does need to listen to the people. It needs to reconnect with reality. Clearly, the heads are in the sand. To think that people would just go quietly away and accept this is just not fair. The Minister's amendment points to figures showing pay increases over recent years but the questions many workers are asking are: if things are going so well why is it becoming so much harder to recruit workers into many essential public services, and why are there so many vacancies? I stand in solidarity with the workers, the teachers, the public administration staff, the administration staff from local authorities, our health services staff and the staff in many other services that are essential to the operation of this country. It is now high time that we listen and that we prioritise. Not telling people the truth about where money is going and lashing taxpayers' money on 34,000 NGOs is just appalling. It is criminal. There is no regulation whatsoever. NGOs do not have to come kicking and screaming but yet we have hard-pressed families struggling to pay mortgages and struggling to feed their families and put their families through school and college. It is unfair. The whole system and the whole focus needs to change urgently.

I acknowledge the contributions made during this debate. I have listened carefully to the contributions that were made to me and I know that the Minister, Deputy Chambers, listened to the contributions made when he was here, and in particular those concerns that have been raised on behalf of public servants. I hear what has been said. I understand the concerns about inflation and the cost of living. I hear the concerns about the expiry of the public service agreement. I also hear the concerns of public servants who do not find themselves involved in industrial action but who simply want certainty about the future. Nobody benefits from industrial action. It causes disruption for people who rely on public services, families, communities and public servants themselves. We have consistently stated that pay, including cost-of-living pressures, can and should be discussed as a priority in negotiations on a successor public service agreement. We have made it clear that these matters can be considered as a priority alongside the wider issues that inevitably arise in the context of discussions on the public service agreement. The Government has consistently indicated its willingness to enter discussions. Our position has been clear, namely that negotiations, not industrial action, are the best way to secure an outcome for public servants and the taxpayer. Much has been said about inflation, but let us be clear: the Government fully recognises the impact that rising prices have had on households. That is precisely why the Government has repeatedly taken measures to support households and workers through periods of higher inflation and uncertainty. Successive public service agreements have protected the pay of public servants from inflation. However, it is equally important to recognise that responsible government requires balancing a number of considerations. Any future agreement must be fair to public servants, affordable to the taxpayer, sustainable over the longer term and consistent with maintaining strong public services. I am aware that reference has been made to local bargaining issues and delays in implementation. The Government remains committed to the full implementation of local bargaining. Engagement between my officials and the public services committee of ICTU over recent months has identified pathways to resolve a range of outstanding issues. Engagement at a local level can and should continue. Throughout this dispute, the Government has continued to signal its readiness to talk. We have provided assurances that pay issues can be addressed and we have indicated flexibility on the structure and sequencing of discussions. We have made it clear that there is a pathway back to negotiations. The counter-motion I have moved therefore sets out a more constructive and realistic approach, one that acknowledges the importance of pay and the cost-of-living concerns, recognises the need for meaningful engagement on all outstanding issues and supports a return to negotiations. Let us step back from escalation, return to dialogue and work together to secure a successor agreement, one that is fair, affordable and sustainable. Public servants deserve certainty. Service users also deserve certainty. The country deserves that certainty. That certainty will not be achieved through industrial action. It will be achieved through negotiations and through agreement. For that reason, I urge Deputies to reject the motion and support the Government's amendment.

I have to say to the Government that if anybody was looking down from space yesterday on this country, they would have asked how in the name of God a country with public finances the envy of Europe, the healthiest public finances across the EU, could have had 300,000 public sector workers out on strike. It really beggared belief that the Government allowed the situation to get to the stage it did. In a country in which we had pay agreements in some of our darkest days, when the country was nearly bankrupted by Fianna Fáil in government, the Government could not bring itself to negotiate a deal. It let it hang for the past number of months. The remarkable thing about what happened yesterday is that if there was a big private sector company with its workers about to go on strike, the Government would be telling the company to get its act together, look at its profits, get on with it and agree a deal. Yet, all we have seen from this Government is intransigence and, indeed, mixed messages. I thank my colleague Deputy Nash for tabling this important motion today because there is a sense after the enormous success of yesterday that things will have to happen now. However, there is still ambiguity as to what the Government's intentions are. When I look at the text of the outrageously drafted counter-motion it is urging us to support, it states issues like pay can be dealt with along with everything else. We heard something a bit stronger from the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, in his speech. Which is it? Nobody is going to tolerate these mixed messages. The reality is that if 300,000 workers were out yesterday, they could not be wrong, as the president of the Prison Officers' Association put it. The reality is that we have seen contempt shown by this Government towards public sector workers, not just over the past few months but also over the past number of years. As a proud former trade union official, I find it hard to remember a time when we have had so many public sector strikes within various sectors over a number of years. I think of the perfusionists, school secretaries, medical scientists, retained firefighters, those working to rule in the local authorities, ICT staff out in Oberstown and nurses almost having to go on strike. The reality here is that there has been contempt shown by the Government with regard to successive Labour Court recommendations about doing the right thing by these workers, which the Government, and particularly the Ministry for public expenditure and reform, has ignored. That is wrong. Yesterday, it needs to be said, was a seismic moment for our unions and for public sector workers. It was a really powerful moment because it just showed the power of being in a union. It showed that united we bargain, divided we beg. What was really striking to me when I visited so many pickets yesterday was the number of people, young and old, who had never been on strike before. There were librarians, customs officers, catering staff, administrators, nurses, doctors and so many other people who felt really angry and motivated to get out there. The reality is that this Government has not taken people seriously. The Taoiseach last week showed contempt for the reasons people go on strike. Everybody who goes on strike makes a sacrifice, and it was really demeaning and degrading of the Taoiseach to make the comments he made. However, the reality now is that the workers had their day yesterday. The Government needs to come to the table. We need to see real action on the part of the Minister for public expenditure and reform and the rest of the Government, and a change of attitude, to get this deal over the line.

As other colleagues have done, I thank my colleague Deputy Ged Nash for tabling this important motion. Yesterday, like every other day, the Labour Party stood in solidarity with public sector workers. I travelled the length and breadth of County Kildare, hearing from these same public sector workers who are struggling to make ends meet, like many other working households in this country. Simply put, this is because the Government has allowed the public sector pay agreement to expire, leaving over 300,000 workers with no collective pay agreement for the first time since 2010. The Taoiseach seemed to think that public sector workers wanted to strike. Had the Government, including the Minister, Deputy Chambers, followed through on its commitments and talked first about pay, this could have been avoided. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael need to ask themselves why so many people joined the pickets yesterday. The only thing that I saw yesterday was how this Government's achievement was a loss of credibility in having workers' backs. The people I spoke to on the picket lines in Athy, Newbridge and Naas did not want to be there. The question they asked me time and time again was whether they would be out next week. These workers wanted to be back with their students and patients and assisting their communities, doing what they do best. In many cases, nurses and care assistants who stood side by side on the picket lines at St. Vincent's Hospital in Athy and at Naas General Hospital were telling me that after their long hours on the picket line, they were heading back in to care for patients the only way they know how to, ensuring that there was continuity of care throughout. The Government will, of course, try to tell us that budget 2027 delivered for workers like those on the picket lines. It did nothing for the ordinary worker. The tax credit changes proposed by the Government will barely make a dent in the cost of living or improve conditions for many working families. They are not going to be able to pay their heating bills. They are not going to be able to put fuel in the car or heating oil in the tank. Those were the conversations that I had on the picket line time and again with so many yesterday. Time and again, workers were asking how it had come to this, why the Government had not recognised the work they do and allowed them a quality of life that they, in their work, and their families truly deserve. Our motion calls on the Government to drop its arbitrary preconditions and commit to engaging with trade unions in good faith and to ensuring future pay increases will, at a minimum, protect the pay of all essential public sector workers from inflation. The Government needs to support public sector workers, fully recognise the work they do and protect them in this cost-of-living crisis, which is deeply affecting so many of them.

I thank colleagues across the House for their support for the Labour Party motion. I will provide this advice in an effort to be helpful to the Minister, who I know is back having a briefing with ministerial officials. I also know the officers of the public sector committee of congress are meeting at this time. The best thing the Minister and his colleagues can do this evening is to instruct the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, to withdraw the Government's countermotion, for a number of reasons. It is pockmarked with ambiguities, it is inconsistent and, frankly, after the democratic expression of anxiety yesterday on the picket lines across this country, it is tone deaf and has now been overtaken by events. This, in itself, is an articulation of the cack-handed way in which this Government has handled this process since the expiry of the public sector pay deal in June, but what else can we expect? I will say one thing about the Minister. He has proven himself to be the best recruiting agent for the public sector trade unions in this country in many decades. What we have seen over the past few days and weeks is a movement that is intrinsically important to fairness in our economy and society being emboldened and galvanised because of this Government's pig-headed, dog-in-a-manger attitude to the trade union movement and its members, who deliver the high-quality public services on which we all depend. I ask the Minister to reflect on that. I hope and believe that yesterday will mark a turning point for this country. We have seen the development of a new generation of trade unionists who will no longer take economic inequality for granted and will no longer accept what this Government says to them when it describes the economic success of this country because the lived reality of their lives is something very different indeed. Yesterday will, I hope, inspire a younger and new generation of public servants to think bigger about this country and what we can achieve together. We are a fantastic country for marching in solidarity with those who are experiencing injustice here and across the world. What we have not been so good at in recent years is coming together collectively to oppose the injustices imposed on Irish people economically by their governments. When the Minister says he is committed to the principle of collective bargaining, I say we should look at the record. Let us look at the Minister's performance and the performance of the previous Government on the delivery of local bargaining elements of successive public sector pay agreements and look as well at this Government and its agencies' record of failure to introduce and implement recommendations from the Labour Court, the industrial relations machinery of the State on which we all depend. I urge colleagues to reject the Government amendment, support the Labour Party motion and ensure the message is sent very clearly to the Government today that it needs to get real and make a deal.