As we move towards May Day, we recognise the proud tradition of the trade union movement and all those women and men who have served, joined and organised. As working-class people, we know that every time our class, the workers, has made an advance and a gain, it is because they struggled, fought for it and stood up and were counted. I am very proud to come from Waterford, a county and a city imbued with a strong trade union tradition. I have been a member of a trade union since I was a teenager. It was Mandate first and then the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union, ATGWU, now UNITE the Union. I am still very proud to be a member of the Dungarvan branch of UNITE the Union. Workers today are under sustained pressure from a deepening cost of living crisis and, in that context, it is even worse that the Government is trying to delay, prevaricate and hold back progress on workers’ rights, so that trade unions, those people who workers select and elect to stand up for them in the workplace, are not even allowed to get into the workplace to make representations on their behalf and to meet workers to increase union density. This is the Government taking a side. It is taking the side it has always taken, that is, the side of the bosses. We have seen it when it comes to the Debenhams workers in Waterford and across the State. We have seen it when it comes to workers in all types of sectors, whether they are working in retail, in an abattoir, on a factory floor, as a winch operator on a search-and-rescue aircraft serving this State or as a special needs assistant, SNA, it does not really matter. The Government seems to have the approach that it is always about holding them back, holding back progress and frustrating the trade union movement and its ability to do its work and to stand up for workers. It has already been said, but the countermotion put forward by the Government is shameful. Sadly, though, it is not shocking and not surprising. At the end of this week, on May Day, as workers reflect on who has their backs, they know it is their trade union and us Sinn Féin members and others in the Opposition. They know it quite clearly because they see both sides of the equation. They see the increasing costs and increasingly difficult nature of life and getting by, for workers and families. They also see the other side of things, where going to work is becoming more and more difficult for those who want to have dignity and fairness in the workplace. This situation is being made more difficult by the Minister and his Government.

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Hear, hear.

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