Front-line workers in health, education, justice and transport have had to deal with a system that has had its budget cut to the bone. The workload and work environment have gotten worse. Pay has decreased and conditions have deteriorated. Public sector workers have had €12 billion taken from their pay while they work an additional 15 million hours a week. New entrants since January 2011 start on a pay scale that is on average 10% less than their workmates. The Government has no plan to address these issues. There is no commitment to equal pay for equal work. The mantra that the Lansdowne Road agreement is the only game in town just does not hold. There is now a clear need for a new pay deal built upon fairness and equality for workers. What the vast majority of workers want and deserve is the fair and timely unwinding of pay cuts, and pay restoration. We know that cannot be achieved overnight but it can be timelined, which needs effective dialogue and the formation of a new pay agreement which lays out a clear, sensible path to the provision of full pay restoration. In Sinn Féin's view, this must also be a process that prioritises those on low and middle incomes. It must ensure pay equality for post-2011 entrants, beginning with the restoration of certain allowances for nurses, non-consultant doctors, teachers and gardaí. Sinn Féin, in our alternative budget, allowed for this. The Government and Fianna Fáil did not. Any new agreement must also ensure the right to access the State's industrial relations machinery to An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces. It must also deliver a reduction in agency work and replace it with permanent public sector contracts.

There is a notion, peddled by their detractors, that public sector workers are a protected species. This may be so for some high earners but the vast majority of public sector workers are on low and middle incomes and they are absolutely crucial for the development of our public services. These ongoing cynical efforts to divide public and private sector workers must be repudiated. We need a strong, properly funded, resourced public sector because it is crucial to genuine economic and social progress. An integral step to achieving that, if the Taoiseach believes in it, which I doubt, is to ensure that those working in the public sector enjoy equitable pay, conditions and certainty. Private sector workers deserve this also. Despite the Taoiseach's resistance thus far and Deputy Micheál Martin's attempts to appear more hard line than the Taoiseach, will the Taoiseach accept the very real need for urgent dialogue with the public sector?

Deputy Adams says we need a strong and properly resourced public sector. Everyone can agree with that. However, we need to have fairness across the board for every worker in the country.

We have come through difficult times, as Deputy Adams is well aware. He should understand that the Government, made up of its different elements, will not sacrifice the hard-won gains that have been achieved by the people in recent years. We require a well-managed process that can look at the broader context of where the country is now and where we think it can be in five or ten years time. That means not only looking at individual public services but at the public service in general as well as looking throughout the country for public and private workers. There is a need to be fair in what we do.

The Government has said that we stand by the Lansdowne Road agreement. The Estimates and the associated ceilings are set. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has acknowledged that the Labour Court recommendation brings added pressure to the responsibilities he must discharge.

The Government will respond in this way. It will set out a process that can be well managed, that will be in the interests of every worker in the country and that will provide for the betterment of public services generally, which is something that people need.

I put it to Deputy Adams that the public service pay demands have to be balanced against the constraints upon the Minister and the Government. There will be a collective whole-of-Government response. This has to take into account the question of productivity gains in the delivery of better public services for everyone. There must be fairness as part of this as well.

The Government will respond collectively in setting out an agenda, structure and a strategy by which we can best manage the circumstances in which we now find ourselves as a country. We must not have a situation whereby it becomes sector versus sector. There should be fairness right across the board for public and private workers. The Minister has asked his officials to deal with the relevant committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. I think that meeting takes place this evening.

I asked the Taoiseach about starting talks. The Taoiseach ignored that question. It was a simple proposition. I asked him to start talks to try to find a pathway through these difficulties.

The Taoiseach has said there needs to be fairness for all workers. That is the exact opposite of what the Government is doing. The Government stance is untenable and I believe the Taoiseach knows it. He knows that, as we face into the winter, citizens will be alarmed at the potential for doctors and nurses to be on picket lines when we face into an accident and emergency department crisis. We know that the largest public sector unions are either balloting for industrial action or indicating that is what they will do in future. The Taoiseach has offered no solutions in any of his utterances so far. He has not even suggested a process to find a solution, which is what I was asking him to do. The Taoiseach might think of a different solution from what we might think up, but the process to find that has to begin.

It is also clear that the Lansdowne Road agreement has run out of road. I am saying to the Taoiseach that the process of reaching a new agreement must start. Facing down workers and their unions will not work. The Taoiseach should leave the macho posturing to the Fianna Fáil leader. Let him do all that strutting his stuff. The Taoiseach is the Head of Government. He should start the talking now and set the example. We need a conversation and a negotiation. Will the Taoiseach accept the need for dialogue without delay?

I have said to Deputy Adams that the Government will respond to this collectively and set in place its strategy for a best managed way of dealing with the many challenges facing the Government, the economy and, in particular, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

A low was reached in 2013 of 260,700 public servants. The corresponding figure was 285,400 in 2008.

The end of 2016 figure for public service employment is likely to be more than 279,000. Given the requirement for additional public services and investment in them, possibly 8,000 to 9,000 recruits will be required every year. The replacements for that reduction of more than 25,000 were mainly in the priority areas of nurses, gardaí, teachers and so on. In the interest of everybody, and to be fair to everyone, the Government is saying that we need a collective response. The Lansdowne Road agreement has proved to be a central tenet of public pay in this country. We stand by it. The ceilings have been set out. The Minister does not have the moneys being demanded, so there is a need, in everybody's interests, for a well-managed process and strategy by which these matters can be discussed in detail and a pathway forward negotiated.

When?

I thank the Taoiseach.

There will be a time and a place for that. It is in the interest of fairness across the board because we face external challenges as well arising from the decision of the UK and other international events that may have an impact upon the world economy and upon ours as an exporting nation. There is pressure on the Exchequer pay bill. Nobody I know wants to wreck the hard-won gains in our economy made by the sacrifices of the people over the past six or seven years.

I thank the Taoiseach.

Deputy Adams does not want that to happen, nor does anybody else. On that basis, it is imperative that the Government responds collectively but in the broadest possible way, with the best-managed strategy and in the interests of everybody.

I thank the Taoiseach.

This is not a case of one particular sector trying to win over another. There are challenges and there are financial pressures, but we must deal with this through a carefully managed strategy and process by which everybody can have his or her say and by which we point a way forward in the interests of everybody.

When?