——have constituents travelling from around the country this morning to bring a message to Government. They are from the 8,000 post office workers who have been left with no choice but to strike for basic justice and workers' rights. How does the Tánaiste justify standing over a situation where workers on very modest incomes have been denied any wage increases whatsoever under Sustaining Progress, the so-called partnership deal?

Five weeks ago, on Leaders' Questions, the Taoiseach agreed with me that there was an important social element to the An Post service and no more so than in regional towns, villages and remote country areas where the post office is part of the social fabric of life. Despite this, there is a proposal to privatise approximately 100 sub-post offices. The Government outrageously put its hands in the pockets of ordinary post office workers and, even more scandalously, in the pockets of post office pensioners to subsidise and finance this service. Why is the Government prepared to allow this to happen? Why is An Post management, which has no credibility due to the way it has dealt with its workers and broken agreements, given carte blanche to walk all over the rights of post office workers, to break agreements with impunity and treat workers in a way that gives the lie to any concept of so-called partnership?

Is this a question or a statement?

Will the Tánaiste stand over this disgraceful abuse of workers, for which she will be responsible, as she will be for any inconvenience caused to customers today as a result of this unavoidable action? What investment does the Government propose to make in the social fabric that is the An Post service?

Is it a social service or a business?

The workers have not fully exhausted the industrial relations machinery of the State. Some 10,000 staff work in the postal service. In the past, agreements have been made but productivity has not been forthcoming. In the past couple of years, the postal service has lost €90 million. Last year, the volume of mail dropped by approximately 7%. We are moving to a situation in which by 2009, as Deputy Joe Higgins is aware, there will be full liberalisation in this area. The reality is that the company cannot pay if it is not able to do so. All social partnership agreements provide an out for companies that do not have the ability to pay, which is the position in regard to An Post.

That is as helpful as the Tánaiste was yesterday fumbling around the Christmas tree that refused to light.

We could have done with a handyman like the Deputy.

He was not invited.

We could put Deputy Higgins on the top of the tree.

Allow the Deputy to speak. He has only one minute.

Not a penny of investment has been made by the State in the postal side of services. That can be contrasted with the following. A handful of rich parasites from the highest paid echelons of business, the medical profession and the legal profession recently bought land in Stillorgan for €31 million. Only four years later, they sold it for an obscene profit of €53 million. Their contribution to society is that working people will slave for 30 years to pay mortgages on the houses that will be built on the land to make this profit, which puts these bastions of the establishment, in my view, on the same level as heroin pushers who we usually regard as anti-social scum.

Is this a question or a further statement?

The Deputy's time is concluded.

However, when the Government halved capital gains tax, it handed these speculators a direct subsidy of €10 million. The Government subsidises a handful of social parasites but treats thousands of men and women working in the postal service, who drag themselves from their beds at 5 a.m. on dark, wintry mornings to keep our social services going, with absolute contempt and ignores them.

The Deputy's time is concluded.

Will the Government stand by workers' rights? Will it make the necessary investment available so they can provide the services needed in our society? Will it give them their wage increases?

The best investment would be if both sides would work together to find a resolution through the industrial relations machinery of the State. It is not the case that no investment has been made in the postal service. Some €12.7 million was invested in computerisation just over one year ago. The Government remains committed to a successful postal service but that requires everybody to implement agreements reached and to use whatever industrial relations machinery is available to resolve difficulties of the kind the Deputy mentioned.

That is a pathetic response.