Public sector unions announce 24-hour strike

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Ciara.

Shane Colman (0:10)

Now, unions involved in public sector pay talks have confirmed they're preparing for a 24-hour work stoppage on Thursday week, that's November 12th, after pay negotiations at the Workplace Relations Commission released, I should say, an impasse on Friday. We're joined by Aisling Moloney, political correspondent with the Irish Independent. Aisling, just before we get to what's happening with the unions, a little bit of breaking news this afternoon on Patrick O'Donovan's portfolio being reassigned temporarily while he continues his recovery.

Aisling Moloney (0:42)

Yes, Shane. So this is the Minister for Communications, Culture and Sport, Patrick O'Donovan, the Limerick TD, who was taken away from an EU presidency event in early October in an ambulance after falling unwell at the event where he was treated in hospital for a time after, but is now recovering at home, we understand. But we're told today that the Minister's Culture, Communications and Sport brief is going to be taken over by the Enterprise Minister Peter Burke. So the Enterprise Minister and fellow Fianna Gael Minister Peter Burke will be doing his own brief of Enterprise and Employment and that brief, as well as the Culture and Communications brief, while Minister O'Donovan is on sick leave. He will still remain as a Cabinet Minister, but with no portfolio while he is recovering at the moment. This is kind of similar, Shane, to what happens when a Minister goes on maternity leave. We saw this with Helen McEntee. It's a similar arrangement where Helen McEntee was still a Cabinet Minister, but her duties, essentially, of the brief that she had at the time, were delegated to another sitting Cabinet Minister, which is what's happening at the moment within the Fine Gael ranks at Cabinet. So it was confirmed this afternoon, the Tánis da Simon Harris, who is the leader of the Fine Gael Party, asked the Taoiseach Mícheál Martin first, was the go-ahead that this could be done. There were significant questions over the last week around how, I suppose, the work of that department would be done while the Minister is recovering from his illness, because there are a lot of things on the boil in that particular brief.

One being, I suppose, a row over funding for the National Broadcaster, RTE, who had a shock, and they were shocked by a cut in funding in the budget. But there are other issues as well around the licence fee that needs to be sorted out. The licence fee continues to collapse.

As we know, I think a 6% or 7% decline this year alone, even since last year when it was already declining on licence fee receipts.

Shane Colman (3:00)

It's a busy portfolio for Peter Burke to take on. Again, just before we move on to the unions, there was also a bit of news in relation to Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne.

He appeared in Dublin District Court Chards with Drink Driving today.

Aisling Moloney (3:14)

Yes, indeed. So we know people might be aware of this situation with the Fianna Fáil TD. As you mentioned, Malcolm Byrne, he stepped down as chair of the Uroctus Committee on Artificial Intelligence in the wake of this coming out. He was arrested on the 28th of May while traveling from his hotel to Dublin Airport, and he was found to be above the drink driving limits. Yes, and he appeared, as you mentioned, Dublin District Court charged with drink driving. He's not entered a plea and the case has been adjourned until March 23rd next year for hearing.

Shane Colman (3:51)

Okay, let's talk about this standoff between the government and the unions. The unions have very deliberately, I imagine, picked a very important day for their next stoppage.

Aisling Moloney (4:04)

Yes, so this has come out this afternoon as well. Some breaking news that anybody working in the public sector and even those who don't but will be affected by strikes will be very keen to hear that the unions are planning to go ahead with an all-out, 24-hour work stoppage, so all-out strike next Thursday, November 12th, after pay negotiations that were happening at the Workplace Relations Commission reached an impasse on Friday night.

Now, the unions came out today to say they're going forward, they're making the preparations for this all-out strike on November 12th, which will be similar in magnitude to what we saw at the start of October. People will remember more than 300,000 workers picketed outside schools and hospitals and government buildings. People obviously couldn't send their children to school, etc., which is the largest since 2009 So we're going to see another potentially next Thursday, if there's not further movement on these pay negotiations. But as you mentioned, there's a massive meeting of EU political leaders happening in Dublin on that day. Now, yesterday, the reporting around this potential strike action next week was around next Wednesday, because we've seen these strike actions happen in the middle of the week on a Wednesday. And that's kind of what the unions were saying yesterday. But now today, they've confirmed that it's going to be next Thursday. That's what they're planning for. And they, I suppose, rejected that they said anything to do with this massive European political community summit that's taking place in the Convention Centre. But they've said that it was for religious reasons that they went for Thursday rather than Wednesday, which I suppose people can take their own view on that in particular. But you can see here, the unions are very headstrong in their position on this, really pushing for the maximum in relation to what they want around pay. We don't really know, to be honest, what's happening in those negotiations. They have been ongoing and so they're confidential. I suppose there was kind of an anger in the room in terms of where the unions are coming from. Kevin Calhoun, the head of FORSA, talking after this release today, talking about how they're out there, they're striking and they want to go ahead with the strike for all the people that they're trying to get this public sector pay deal for. I suppose we could see large support in Sunday Independent poll at the weekend for the public sector strikes. You can see there the kind of upper hand, I suppose that the unions might be playing here in this situation. But it could all change.