The salary of the bank's managing director is not only in excess of the Government's guideline, but is also approximately 20 times what a county council road worker is paid and whose pay the Government is proposing to cut. This day week, every child will be home from school or parents will need to find child minders because all of the schools will be closed. People with medical appointments, many of whom have waited for them for some time, will have them cancelled because hospitals will be operating on a Christmas Day roster. People making urgent telephone calls to social welfare offices will not be answered. If there is a spate of bad weather, there will be no county council road workers to clear the roads and drains because all of the staff will be on strike.

Two weeks ago, I put it to the Taoiseach that it would be better for this country were there a national agreement. I suggested five measures that should form part of that agreement and urged the Taoiseach to engage in talks with the unions concerned so that we would not head into a period of industrial strife and conflict. We are only one week away from a national strike. What are the Taoiseach and the Government doing to avert the strike due to occur this day week, 24 November?

Why does Deputy Gilmore not talk to his friends in the unions about the strike?

Talks are continuing with the public sector unions regarding the whole question of public sector pay and the contribution it can make to the budgetary requirements we will face in the coming weeks ahead of 9 December. We are also in the process of indicating to them our view of where we believe the necessary efficiencies and changes have to take place in order to reform our public services in the longer term as well as in the short and medium terms. This is continuing.

A decision was taken by, as Deputy Gilmore said, the unions concerned to embark on a one-day strike on 24 November. I very much regret the fact that it appears the strike will proceed. I would ask that it not proceed for two reasons, given the impact it can have on the provision of services for those who require them and because it is not clear what it can achieve, since it would be far better to continue with the discussions that are ongoing between Government and the unions. I would ask that people would, even at this late stage, consider the position further and avoid the necessity of withdrawal from work on that date, given the impact it will have on society, and allow their representatives to continue in discussions with the Government as we seek to find a way forward.

The Taoiseach knows well that type of appeal is meaningless, particularly given circumstances in which overwhelming numbers in the unions concerned took the decision to take strike action. If the Taoiseach is serious about averting the strike — I hope he is, although I did not detect that from the tone of his answer — he and his Ministers need to engage directly in these talks rather than leaving them to officials. We are a week away from a strike. The Government will either make a serious attempt to avert it or it will not.

Were this a strike by unions seeking a pay increase, everyone in the House and elsewhere would tell them to negotiate or, if they could not reach agreement in negotiations, use the Labour Court, the conciliation and arbitration mechanisms or the State's other industrial relations machinery. In the current circumstances, the Government is seeking to reduce the pay bill, but the same rules should apply. The Government should negotiate or, if an agreement is not possible, use the State's industrial relations machinery to resolve issues that cannot be agreed. What should not be allowed to occur and into which the Government is sleepwalking is a strike next Tuesday. If that strike goes ahead, the Government will inevitably go down the road of conflict, industrial action and strife, which is not what the country needs. We need a period of time where people pull together, not engage in conflict. The Government has a responsibility to roll up its sleeves and try to reach agreement with the unions concerned to avert that strike.

Those are precisely the sort of sentiments that I expressed over the weekend. I agree that it is a difficult situation for any trade union representative where what is in prospect is a reduction in the overall pay bill rather than an increase being negotiated.

However, I emphasise, and remind the Deputy, that I am engaging with the public sector unions to see what policy options they claim could be available here to assist in ensuring that we make the necessary savings of the order of €1.3 billion that must come from the public sector pay bill as we seek to bring forward reductions of the order of €4 billion in total public service provision. It is an inescapable fact that public sector pay must be part of that contribution. There is no way around that.

We have engaged, and are engaging, with the public sector unions to see if there is a means of doing this that would be acceptable to all. I am interested in obtaining the reductions in the pay bill by whatever means is available to us. I would like to do that by agreement. I have made that clear from the outset, but I also have made clear that the Government has a duty to discharge here. We must discharge that duty, hopefully, with agreement. It will not be for the want of trying.

There is no question, in terms of the pejorative terms being used by the Deputy, of sleep-walking or anything else. Everyone recognises the seriousness of the situation. Everyone sees how difficult the choices are and how limited the options may be, but we are approaching this matter in good faith.