I hope the Minister has had the opportunity since last week to familiarise himself a little more with some of the issues behind the Aer Lingus cabin crew dispute. I am hoping that the Minister may have had a chance to send someone along to the picket lines at Shannon to talk to the workers there and to understand why, for the first time in many years, over 1,000 workers believed they had no alternative but to engage in industrial action last week, an action which saw the virtual grounding of the Aer Lingus fleet with 200 flights cancelled.

I put it to the Minister last week in the House that how he would deal with this dispute would be one of the first measures of the post-election tests of this Government to determine whether it had listened to people. I do not think he has done a great job of it. Last week the company initially announced it would meet the workers, the first time after refusing to do so for three years, but no date was set and the strike went ahead. Last night insult was added to injury when on the eve of the so-called bilateral talks supposedly to resolve the issues, letters were sent to workers' homes intimidating them and withdrawing their staff privileges. This is hardly the antics of a company that wanted to resolve anything. It is like a husband agreeing to go to relationship counselling and then kicking his wife around the kitchen the night before. It is outrageous, bully-boy tactics by management and the Minister has stood by in silence and done nothing about it. In my opinion, lack of action condones such antics.

These actions by management were outrageous, particularly in the context of the weekend's goading and clamouring for such action by Michael O'Leary, the poster boy of anti-trade unionism-----

A question, please, Deputy.

-----who made his mark cheerleading a race to the bottom. Does the Minister wish his Government to be synonymous with this type of employment, the type of employment in Ryanair where nobody is directly employed, people are hired and fired at will, with no promotions, no pensions and no progression because nobody stays long enough? The Minister and the staff are the biggest shareholders in Aer Lingus. Sitting on the fence is not good enough any longer. What is he going to do to preserve workers' legitimate and laudable expectation to be able to do their work in a manner which respects their work-life balance?

It is a difficult industrial dispute and I do not think it helps that Deputy Daly intervenes in a partial manner on one side of the dispute and then uses the opportunity of the dispute to launch a proxy attack on Ryanair which is not a party to this dispute. The action taken by the workers on this occasion was disproportionate. I defend the rights of workers to take industrial action but I think it was disproportionate at the bank holiday weekend to discommode 30,000 ordinary people who had plans to have a break at the weekend by flying out of the country. The action was disproportionate. I said that to the Deputy last week and I repeat it this week. I also said that the way forward is to use the industrial relations machinery of the State, if it can be helpful to bring the two sides together. This dispute should be resolved, as industrial disputes are resolved, by talking and by compromise and by coming to a solution. I do not think it achieves anything to have a tirade against one side when there are two sides to every industrial dispute. At the end of the day, management and the representatives of the workers will have to sit down and resolve this dispute and they should do so sooner rather than later without discommoding the Irish public further.

I note the Minister did not take the opportunity of the intervening week to read up on the issues at stake. Ryanair has the biggest shareholding in Aer Lingus. If the Minister had read any of the newspapers at the weekend he would have seen that Michael O'Leary spent his weekend goading and cajoling Aer Lingus management to take precisely the action they took.

This is Leaders' Questions and the Deputy must put questions. She cannot launch into a tirade about X, Y or Z.

I am responding to the point the Minister made.

She must remember that this is Leaders' Questions.

The Government is a large shareholder in Aer Lingus. The combined shares held by Aer Lingus staff and the Government account for a majority shareholding in the company. As such, the Government is not an idle bystander in the current dispute. In stating that it would be useful for the parties involved to use the industrial relations machinery of the State, the Minister did not pass comment on the consistent refusal of management to do so.

I will put to the Minister two issues that have been put to me by workers. The first is from a cabin crew member, Una, a woman with 16 years' service who addresses the Minister's point about the dispute. She states that she is proud to be standing up for what she knows is right and that she needs her job and therefore needs conditions to be sustainable. She states the company makes staff feel like it does not want them but this, she adds, is hard to explain in an e-mail. She also states that staff are nervous about the action and do not want to ruin people's holidays. It is heartbreaking for everybody, she adds, but having been told to stand up to bullies, that is what staff must do. The Government is not on the sidelines in this dispute, which is difficult for the workers involved.

The Deputy is over time. She should ask a question.

As the major shareholder in Aer Lingus, does the Government believe it is acceptable for people to be bullied and driven out of a career on the basis that they cannot have a family life, as is afforded to pilots and every other cabin crew member? Is it unreasonable for people to ask to work in a more family friendly way? If that is not an unreasonable request, what is the Minister doing about it?

I am very sorry for anybody who is out of work through an industrial dispute or for other reasons. However, I am also very sorry for 40,000 ordinary Irish people who had planned an inexpensive holiday abroad in early June and were prevented from travelling by an industrial dispute which was, on the face of it, disproportionate given that there is industrial machinery in place that could assist in resolving this dispute. That is my position. I appeal again to both sides to talk out their differences and come to a satisfactory resolution.

Many people take holidays in June because their children are not doing examinations. While the families of children who are doing examinations cannot travel, other children in secondary school are on holidays in June when it is less expensive to travel than it is in July or August. Many of them take the opportunity to do so.

Individual cases are always sad and I am not criticising the Deputy for raising an individual case. However, there are 30,000 other individual cases involving people who were not able to take what was probably a well deserved holiday as a result of the industrial dispute.

They travelled on the day before the dispute.