Independent Ireland supports a lot of what is being proposed here this evening going forward. I would also bear the employer in mind. I do not think anyone has spoken here about the employer and the difficulties many employers have at this present time and which many employers have had for quite a period of time. It is about finding that balance between rooting out the wrong being done to employees in this society but still protecting employers who are trying to create jobs. Sometimes when we talk inside in the Dáil here it is like everybody is Dell or everybody is Apple, but that is not the case. There are people out there with four or five employees and they are struggling at this present time. They are struggling to deal with the minimum wage even while many are giving over the minimum wage, and they are dealing with holiday pay, maternity pay and paternity pay. They pay out and pay out. They are telling me that they are barely surviving. They are struggling and many are walking away. We have to really find the balance here going forward. It is very easy for me to get up here and say, "Ah sure I am with you all the way and everyone is being wronged and everybody needs to be better paid." Yes, there are hard workers, those people who get up at unearthly hours of the morning every day of the week, fighting hard and struggling to survive, struggling to put money on the table to feed people, but so is the employer and certainly the small employers. We have to protect them also and we have to talk about them here as many have not. When I was at the fuel protests I spoke to many hard-working employers and employee. There was a unity at those peaceful protests. These were farm operators, builders, taxi drivers, bus drivers and fishermen. They were all either employing somebody or employed. They were standing together because they knew they were at the end of their tether and they could not cope any longer. They needed State assistance and it was not there for them. Obviously, people got angry and things got little bit worse as the week went on but it was not too bad in fairness. A protest is a protest and I believe in democracy as long as it is peaceful. What I am saying is that I do have very serious concerns. There are lot of home helps and carers who are undergoing savage costs. Carers are undergoing being means tested. These are such unfair burdens on people who are delivering and working for this country. They are saving this country millions of euro and they are not being respected enough. I have fierce concerns about home helps. I might bring forward something soon about the Government walking away from the old system that is there for the mainly women, who provide a fantastic service, and who are now being hit with massive fuel costs. They are also being hit with private companies taking them over. People from all over the world are working in homes where people deliver locally. They were there and they were always willing to do more hours. They were never given that opportunity and that is an abuse of an employee as far as I am concerned. I see it in my own place in west Cork where people have told me they would work extra hours but they are not being given them. Then I am being told people cannot get them, which is only a fob job to get rid of us. I look at ambulance workers and there is talk about a strike next month. I am not sure how negotiations are going. Recently, I read that there are issues regarding pay and a failure over the past 20 years to update staff salaries to reflect changes in the responsibility in the workload. These people work under immense pressure and I know it well. In my constituency we are blessed to have people who work long hours, delivering for people and saving people's lives. They are pulled and hauled all over the place, wrongfully, behind an iron curtain. They could be up in Tipperary collecting a patient when they should be down in Skibbereen. Terrible wrongdoing is being done to these people. A new wrongdoing is bypassing the local Bantry General Hospital. I am well aware of this. I have been notified about it on numerous occasions. Management in the ambulance service is trying turn a blind eye to it. That is very unfair, again, to workers who are fighting for their basic human rights. That is what they are fighting for. The Government needs to sit up and listen and reward those who do get up in the morning, the hard-working man and woman who go to work every morning. Some of these people are even pension aged and are still working because they have to put bread and butter on the table. At the end of the day, when most of these people come home, they have very few comforts. They may have the little comfort of going to the coffee shop and maybe going for something to eat at the weekend but this is being denied them because they do not have the money. The people do not have the money and it is a massive crisis in this country. I met a Nigerian gentleman lately who told me he has been here for 20 years. He said we have a beautiful country but it is badly run. I had to stand back and tell him he was bloody right. He stunned me but he was 100% right in what he said. He knew it and he focused on it. He loves this country and he works his butt off in this country. When I was talking to him we got into detail. The problem is we are badly run. We need to sit back and reward those who work mortally hard to keep this country ticking over. Look at the fight we had about the SNAs this year. The Government put up a fight on the SNAs and basically it was getting rid of some of them. Not alone this but a bit of respect goes a long way. The Government did not give this respect and put the wrong message out. It was the wrong message, in fairness, but the Government withdrew it. It may not have had the intended effect but it frightened the living daylights out of parents, SNAs and those of us in politics who knew what the SNAs were delivering for the people and that the Government did not reflect this by rewarding them. I have been on a school board of management for many years and I see school secretaries. Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about the Oireachtas TV company. It is the same for school secretaries. When summer comes, they are told to go home and go on welfare. This is not a fair reflection on society. If it is good enough for a teacher to get paid, it is good enough for school secretaries. We have to be inclusive. We have to understand. I really do stand up for the small employers of this country who are massively struggling at present. We cannot point the finger at them because most of them are paying all their contributions and pension entitlements. There is a new one again this year that has worried the living daylights out of employers. A lot of them are saying it is not worth it. I see it in few cafés. I know that VAT is coming down and I welcome this but I have seen it in a good few cafés. Employers have told me they were working too but it was the workers who were making money while they were making nothing, so they are walking away from it. We cannot have a society like this. We need to encourage and reward people. This is a very difficult country for someone to make a profit in. They need to be rewarded for the work they put in. They need to be able to go home with a profit because a profit is turned around and put back into the business.

Sentiment score: -0.00