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issue around recruitment and retention in that very service. He has also left them underpaid. Yesterday, those workers were on the picket line. If the Taoiseach maintains the position he has articulated today, we will face next week, the week after and the week after that an escalating

fulfilled that. The Government has left them understaffed, overworked and underpaid. That is why they are on the picket line today. The Minister said the quiet bit out loud. Ambulance drivers is how she described skilled professionals and paramedics

increasingly seeing the consequences of this Government's failure to support working people. Today, National Ambulance Service workers are on picket lines across the country. Our ambulance drivers and paramedics, who do such heroic front-line work, have been driven to strike over pay and conditions. Like

that their pay should be representative of that. That is the truth. They are on picket lines because of that. I say to the Taoiseach and the Minister, who is tutting over at me, that paramedics have the same responsibility and amount of training as other medical professionals

have just come from the picket line on Davitt Road, where National Ambulance Service workers are on strike for 24 hours because the HSE has failed for six years to implement a 5% pay rise that they are due under benchmarking. It is not just the HSE, though

also want to talk about the National Ambulance Service. I support all of the men and women who are standing on picket lines across the country. In Mayo, there are areas that are incredibly poorly served. In Erris recently, Stephen Lavelle, God rest his soul, was left without

found so uplifting was the constant support coming from the public and from local businesses who wanted to stand with those on the picket line. There is the sheer volume of people who have emailed me over the past few weeks and shared their own personal stories

workers again. Unfortunately, that opportunity was not taken. We had Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and other political parties calling down to the picket lines at those times, I remember, to get their pictures taken with local workers, but they have never done anything to change the situation

further action. These workers provide supports to some of the most vulnerable in our community. Some of the staff I met on the picket line in Coolock have been doing this job for over 25 years and they were not included in the pay deal for section

agree. The concept of school secretaries and caretakers and other ancillary staff who are integral to the operation of our schools being on picket lines was, to be quite honest, very difficult. The industrial machinery of the State is the vehicle through which this issue needs

again. It does not matter if there are outstanding Labour Court judgments against them. Deputy Nash will recall that I was on the picket line with Patricia King outside a major Department where the cleaners were being treated appallingly, but the Government was funding that company. The Government

agreements will not be treated as disposable. That is what we in Sinn Féin stand for. We have stood with workers on the picket line. I have stood with the Debenhams workers in Waterford. We have also stood with the Clerys workers, the Tara Mines workers and many

different reasons. There is transfer trauma, and residents and their loved ones feel they are not being listened to. I was on the picket line with them. They felt they were not getting a response back from the Government. If there was engagement that involved sitting down with

lecturers of the BIMM music college have been forced onto the picket lines. They face an incredible assault on their rights, with 53 workers facing redundancy. A small number of them will be re-employed on less than half the hourly wage they were on previously

British and Irish Modern Music, BIMM, institute. Four of those lecturers are here in the Public Gallery. They were all on the picket lines earlier. I was with them today on Thomas Street. They have been forced to take strike action and mount protests because of absolutely shameful

plaques are inscribed with the names of 11 courageous Dunnes Stores workers who went on strike in 1984 and took to the picket lines in protest against the company's handling of goods from apartheid South Africa. For more than two and a half years, Mary Manning

have to do what Mary Manning and her friends did 41 years ago. They do not have to stand for years on the picket line in the cold, wind and rain. They simply can enact the occupied territories Bill. They can step forward tonight and announce that

have been abused. Children have been abused. Women have been abused. There is absolutely no certainty. I am gathering from reading between the lines from Deputy Kelly's comments yesterday that, of the companies that say that they are coming in, the one that is not is probably … Murphy. I was just talking to one of the workers in Covalen at the moment. It really tells a lot. They will be picketing outside the headquarters of Covalen in Sandyford today between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and again tomorrow between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. They

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 … Minister for public expenditure and reform and the rest of the Government, and a change of attitude, to get this deal over the line

They know what the Government did last year. They live every single day with the consequences. Instead of providing indexation of wages in line with inflation, it took the guts of €1 billion from them in stealth tax increases and gave that to the burger barons … absolutely on brand for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I will say this, too. The Labour Party will not be passing any pickets here in Leinster House next Wednesday