I could have raised many issues today such as, for example, the United Nations Human Rights Committee's meeting on Ireland held yesterday, the massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in Palestine and, obviously, the withdrawal of funding for the neurological organisations. However, I am compelled to raise again some of the issues regarding the dispute in Dublin city between the waste management company, Greyhound, and its workforce, which now has been locked out for more than four weeks as this dispute is now in its fifth week. I understand there has been communication between the workers' union, SIPTU, and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation with a view to arranging a meeting to discuss the serious problems in the waste management industry as a whole.

I wish to repeat the point I made during Leaders' Questions two weeks ago, which is that there is an urgent need for an inquiry into pay and working conditions, issues of training, health and safety, maintenance of vehicles, storage of waste and general compliance with environmental regulations and local authority by-laws. This inquiry must involve all the agencies tasked with supervision, namely, the National Employment Rights Authority, NERA, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, the local authorities, the Irish Waste Management Association and the workers. Is the Taoiseach aware whether this is going ahead and whether this is being driven by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation? That Minister must now examine seriously the need for an employment rights order for this industry. There is intense competition between the companies to cut costs and maximise profits at the expense of wages and proper working conditions in the drive towards competition for the market. If employers get their way, this will become a minimum wage, minimum rights industry with huge implications for health and safety for those working in it. Moreover, a crucial service for public health and the environment is in the hands of cowboy employers.

Does the Taoiseach not consider it to be deplorable that in a modern society, 100 years after the infamous 1913 Lock-out in Dublin, an employer, namely, Greyhound, is prepared to use the same brutal methods to try to crush a unionised workforce? This was a well planned and organised assault by the Buckley brothers by bringing in security on the day and by using so-called agency workers. One of the so-called agencies in-sourced hired operatives at the minimum wage of €8.65 per hour and the main scab organiser, Calin Bogdan, is not a licensed employment agent.

Sorry, we do not mention names in the Chamber.

He deserves to have his name mentioned.

He also happens to have his company address in the same building as Greyhound. I ask the Taoiseach to call on the employer to end the lock-out, reinstate the workforce, withdraw the demand of a pay cut of 35% and to engage positively with the workers' unions in negotiations.

Clean up the mess.

Deputy Joan Collins undermined the council.

I thank Deputy Collins for her question. I recommend that everybody involved in this dispute should avail of the facilities of the well-tried State mechanisms for dealing with disputes and bringing about a resolution. I hope this can happen.

Send them all to the Gaeltacht.

There has been some commentary about NERA's involvement in this company and its employees. While Deputy Joan Collins is aware the authority acts utterly independently in these matters, it is its practice to instigate investigations where there are allegations of breaches of employment rights legislation, as would be appropriate for it to do. There have also been calls generally for a Government task force to investigate the operation of the sector as a whole. I am aware that in his response yesterday to the general secretary of SIPTU, the Minister noted that being mindful that the need for proper compliance with legislation is in the workers' and the wider public interest, he is seeking reports from the relevant agencies under his Department, that is, the Health and Safety Authority, the National Employment Rights Authority, the National Consumer Agency, the Competition Authority and the Labour Relations Commission, LRC, and on the operation of the wider sector itself. This work has commenced and will be concluded as a matter of some urgency.

In respect of State workers, under the Employment Agency Act 1971, the employment agency must hold a licence if it is to carry on its business and NERA's workplace relations licensing section is responsible for issuing employment agency licences. It is a matter for NERA to oversee the operation of the employment legislation in this regard. SIPTU has written to the Minister alleging that a company is providing agency workers to Greyhound, which is displacing its members and sustaining the lock-out and that the company in question is not registered on the list of licensed employment agencies. That is a matter for the relevant section in NERA to deal with that.

Obviously, the former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, launched a consultation paper in November 2013. It received 91 submissions which are being considered and evaluated. In the immediate term, I urge everybody concerned to avail of the facilities of the State mechanism for dealing with this, in order that the dispute might be brought to an end.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply but there is a certain urgency to this because those workers have been locked out for five weeks without a cent in their pockets. All Members of this House will rise on Thursday in the knowledge that their wages will be paid into their bank accounts on Friday week and again in August. These workers have no sense of security that they will go back into the Labour Court. It is where they want to go and I seek a strong indication from the Taoiseach that he is calling on Greyhound to enter into the Labour Relations Commission talks without the threat of a 35% wage cut and that those workers are back at work. That is where they should be as they want to do their work. That is what must be done for this to go ahead.

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach should be coming out loud and clear that these actions by Greyhound are deplorable. The workers are waiting, able and ready to go into talks again and to get their jobs back. That must be driven from the Greyhound management to allow them back into the workforce.

It is a pity the Deputy undermined the council system.

Where was the Deputy?

The Deputy should support the Greyhound workers.

The Deputy is a disgrace.

Please.

Support the workers.

I support the Greyhound workers and was out on the picket line with them last week.

Deputy, please.

The Labour Party does not support workers any more.

I was out on the picket line with them last week.

The Labour Party got its answer from the workers in the local elections throughout the country.

Deputy, please. This is not a shouting match.

Yes, it is.

We did not start it.

Who finished it?

Deputy Joan Collins has raised a fundamentally important point here, which is that workers are without wages for five weeks. I acknowledge that Deputy Dowds met the workers last week. This dispute must be resolved but it will not be resolved with the current impasse. The way it can be resolved is to use the mechanisms of the State that are available to both sides. The Government desires a resolution and the way it must be resolved, like all other disputes, is to use these mechanisms and come to an agreement in order that work can be under way again and workers can receive their wages.

I ask everybody concerned on both sides to use these facilities. That is what they are for and they have been tried and tested in very serious cases over the years and have always proved beneficial in bringing about a conclusion. I suggest strongly that they be applied. The licensing section of the National Employment Rights Authority will deal with the allegation concerning unlicensed operations as such issues are the responsibility of NERA.

I hope this matter can be brought to a conclusion. It is not good that workers have been left without wages for five weeks. The dispute needs to be settled and can be settled and the mechanisms of the State will be beneficial in achieving that.