Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the opening statement of the Minister but I was at a meeting of the justice committee all afternoon, which has just finished. It is a bit of an affront to call this emergency legislation and it is an insult to people. There are real emergencies in Irish society such as the mental health crisis, the housing crisis, the bed crisis in our hospitals and many others for which there is no emergency response and for which no immediate actions or solutions are offered. Where are the sweeping powers to deal with them? Seven years after its introduction and three years after Fine Gael Ministers started to claim the crisis was over and everything was grand, it is shocking that the Government still relies on emergency powers to implement this portfolio.

The Minister and the Government are trying to create a scenario that would have us believe we are always on the brink, balanced on the edge forever in the need of undemocratic and drastic measures. The Minister said we were beginning a process of exiting FEMPI but a lot of people are very doubtful about that because the reality proves that there is no such intention. In fact, FEMPI has been a cover to bring in structural reforms to the Irish economy to undermine public services and workers' pay and facilitate a race to the bottom for which many in society are paying a price.

The actual Emergency in this State, which led to the Emergency Powers Act 1939, lasted for seven years during a real emergency, namely, the Second World War but FEMPI has been in place for seven years without an emergency. This step has been taken at the expense of the democratic process because it is about hollowing out public services and replacing political decision-making with economic decision-making. It makes neoliberalism compulsory and the bureaucratic reforms undermine not just the democratic process but also people's financial security.

The Minister is well aware of the report released two days ago by Aviva that revealed the extent of deprivation in this State, with more than 1 million adults struggling to make ends meet. Two thirds of those who are struggling see no prospect of an improvement in their personal circumstances, which tells us quite a lot about the damage that has been inflicted. Even in the dire times of the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1980s, when people were emigrating, people still had aspirations about improvements being made in their lives but those aspirations have now been largely lost, an incredible indictment on the existing political establishment. The generation of today faces the prospect of being worse off than their parents. Secure full-time jobs are diminishing at an alarming rate, no matter what time a person gets out of bed in the morning. Access to decent education is very much under threat because of austerity policies which cut structural investment, enforced a recruitment embargo and downgraded teachers' pay and conditions in 2011.

FEMPI has not made a positive contribution to the Irish economy, not least in respect of the people at the receiving end of its policies. It did not stop inequality and contributed to the reality highlighted by TASC that Ireland is the most unequal society in the EU. In the time of FEMPI, jobs to which people, in years past, would have aspired such as teacher, garda or nurse are now gone - they are an illusion. A nurse trains here at the expense of the Irish taxpayer and goes somewhere else to get a job because a nurse will not get a decent job in Ireland. A teacher, who is charged with developing our young people, is treated like dirt if he or she is recruited under the present regime. However, while all this austerity was being imposed, the top 1% saw their share of wealth go from just over 10% to 12% between 2015 and 2016. This money could easily have been used to restore what was taken from public sector workers but this is an ideological crusade and driving down wages, conditions and job security in the public sector was followed in the private sector. A garda and a nurse who want to set up home together now have no hope of buying or renting a house in this city because wages have not caught up with prices. On top of that there are insurance costs, child care costs and other austerity measures.

We now have labour market flexibility, job insecurity, low direct taxation, stealth charges, privatisation and the growth of an unfettered financial sector, which has facilitated the transfer of wealth. There are huge structural problems in the Irish economy but the crash, for which we are allegedly now paying the price, was not created by public sector pay or by teachers or nurses or firefighters, yet it gave the Government a new emergency which it used to drive reforms. It has negatively impacted on the quality of life of all citizens and the fact that 80,000 people left the country did serious damage to communities and public services. I did not believe the Government had any justification for cuts in 2010 but even if it had some, it certainly does not have any now. The Act is grossly unfair and entirely inequitable, in that it impacts on the weakest sections of society, low-paid workers, retired people, families with children with special needs and those who rely on care in the home. The targeting of low-paid and middle-income workers in the FEMPI Act is particularly repulsive and has been one of the key contributing factors to the growth in deprivation we have witnesses and which now are an established fact in Irish society. By taking money out of the pockets of lower-paid workers, the Government is effectively taking money from the local economy and all the rot that sets in consequently.

We need to look at inequality in terms of spending power because disposable incomes have been shattered, as compared with gross salaries, by the breadth of the crash and austerity policies. Average rents across Dublin are astronomical and someone with an average gross salary of €45,000, which does not include many in our public sector, would have to pay over €13,500 in rent per year, that is, over one third of their gross pay. It is sick and does not happen in any other European country to the same extent as it does here. The cynical increase in hours to squeeze free labour from public sector workers is particularly offensive and was a very harsh and cruel measure.

It is somewhat ironic that the trade union movement peddled itself on trying to transform conditions for workers by developing the idea of work-life balance. The squeezing of workplace flexibility hit those with children the hardest. They have to collect their kids and pay extra for childminding but they lose out on the time they need to spend with their children, adding to greater pressures at home and so on.

I welcome any measure that puts money back in workers' pockets, but the latest round of proposals leaves an incredible amount to be desired. It dangles the tiny carrot of repaying what was stolen from workers in the first place but makes the robbery of additional hours of free labour from people a permanent fixture of their working conditions. There is no such thing as a free lunch but the few bob being thrown back here is an extortionately priced lunch at the expense of workers' conditions and extra free labour. It turns the pension levy into a permanent cut that will be in place forever. The average public sector worker will be worse off as their 4% rise in wages is less than the projected 4.5% inflation rate over the lifetime of this deal. People are being asked to vote to make themselves worse off.

If I worked in the public service, I would reject this deal and vote accordingly. Unions need to deliver a far better deal for their members because in doing so for their members, they will do so for society, which needs a healthy public service operated by well-paid, secure, permanent, pensionable employment. It used to be seen as a right that even if one were not great at school, one could leave one's job, get a job in a county council, possibly get a council house and that one's children could then go on to be educated, better off than their parents and aspire to do better. All those aspirations have been stood on their head. Undermining the public service is the bedrock of the counter revolution that has taken place in society to the detriment of our young public sector workers in the main on the one hand, and pensioners on the other. In that respect, the deal is reprehensible. I hope it is rejected. It is insulting that people's working conditions are being dictated under the guise of legislation brought in for an emergency. This deal scapegoats people and society. It is unacceptable, particularly in light of the Government's protestations about how well the economy is doing. I hope the deal is rejected. It should be withdrawn in its entirety and unions should once again be able to negotiate their own rates and conditions.

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