I too extend our sympathy and solidarity to the family of Captain Mark Duffy and to those other families who still agonisingly await the return of their loved ones.

Yesterday, hundreds of people marched with the workers of Bus Éireann to the Dáil as part of their campaign to protect their livelihood and the public transport network in this State. Six days into their strike action, those workers are furious, frustrated and bewildered. Yesterday, inside the gates, the man who has the responsibility for this dispute to be resolved in a fair way, the Minister, Deputy Ross, was once again telling the Oireachtas transport committee that he would not intervene and would not do his job. He is happy to hide away in his office and sit on his hands while travel chaos unfolds all around communities that depend on the services of Bus Éireann. It is as though he found the entrance into Narnia and only pops back through the wardrobe every now and then to remind us of just how incompetent he is.

It is time for the Minister, Deputy Ross, to grow up. The invisible transport Minister is so hell-bent on pursuing his mission for privatisation that he is clearly oblivious to the fury of the workers and the exasperation of passengers throughout the State. Those workers who have children to feed and rent or mortgages to pay fear losing between 20% and 30% of their incomes. Passengers cannot get to work, to hospital appointments or to visit family members who rely upon their support. The crisis in the public transport network is causing hardship, stress and disarray. That is the fault of this Minister and the Government. The public is boiling with anger and rightly so. It is very important that this anger be directed at the right people and directed at those responsible. Those responsible are the Minister, Deputy Ross, the Government and the management at Bus Éireann.

The workers who stood on Kildare Street yesterday are taking a brave stand against a blatant attack on their livelihoods and against the dismantling of a public service. It is not easy to be on strike. It is not easy for Bus Éireann workers to be on strike, but what choice do they have when faced with a Minister who is absolutely intent on shutting down Bus Éireann as a public service? We now have the ludicrous situation in which the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport - the person responsible for keeping Ireland moving - is willingly presiding over transport grinding to a halt. The Minister is actually sabotaging the transport network and this cannot be allowed. His position of non-intervention and his flimsy excuses cut no ice, neither with the public nor with the workers. I have a simple question. When will the Government demand that the Minister end his disastrous policy of non-intervention? When will the Government finally demand he do his job?

I completely reject the Deputy's position. I think the Minister, Deputy Ross, is doing his job. For example, this year and last year we have seen a 33% increase in the support for public service provision by Bus Éireann.

We have no buses.

We have traffic congestion.

The Minister is negotiating improved input into Bus Éireann services for the social protection-provided services, such as the free travel scheme. The Minister is making very real progress in providing a future for the public transport services provided by Bus Éireann. We know, and it is something that the Deputy and her party refuse to acknowledge, that the difficulties that arise with regard to Bus Éireann have come from the areas of its commercial operations, where it goes directly head to head against private competitors. Under law, it has been provided that that must be a level playing pitch. It is not open to the Minister, Deputy Ross, or indeed any other Minister to provide subvention to services in which there is a commercially open competition between both sides.

Who started it?

Clearly, the National Transport Authority has indicated that should the restructuring require the withdrawal of certain services, it would be in a position to examine those and provide for substitute services where they are appropriate. The truth is that every time there is an industrial dispute, the Deputy and her party come in to the House and demand that Ministers come along and solve it. We and every party have seen the benefit of an approach to industrial relations in which we have professional people in the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. If the Deputy seeks to elevate and politicise every dispute and looks for Ministers to come in with chequebooks to try to resolve them, we will never have a proper system of industrial relations.

He does not want to resolve it.

Management and unions have to address the issues that are here. It is very regrettable that this has flared into a dispute that is causing so much hardship, but it is not to the Minister that one looks for a solution. This has to be resolved through the negotiation supports that are available through the WRC and the Labour Court. They are long-experienced and seasoned. I am certainly not going to support attempts to undermine those tried and tested approaches in industrial relations.

It seems the Minister is almost as deluded as his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Ross. To describe the current fiasco as "very real progress" is really extreme even by the standards of his Government. Of course, the Minister, Deputy Ross, has previous form in looking the other way and sitting out his responsibilities. We saw how he did that with the Dublin Bus dispute last autumn. I invite the Minister, Deputy Bruton, to come out of his little bubble - perhaps even his Dublin bubble - and cast his eye beyond to understand that quite aside from the intercity services, which are now buckled, cities outside of Dublin have come to a virtual standstill. It is hurting businesses, families and communities and the Government does not seem to care. It seems to think it is a tenable position for a Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to opt out of resolving a massive transport dispute.

This is not simply an ordinary industrial relations dispute. This goes much deeper than that. This is actually a public policy crisis. The workers, the unions, the management and the Government know that. Yet, the Government seems prepared, in the case of the Minister, Deputy Ross, to sit it out and, in the case of the Minister, Deputy Bruton, to brazen it out. That is not good enough. At what point does the Minister, Deputy Ross, come off the benches, get onto the pitch and play his correct role?

The truth is that the approach of the Deputy and her party to industrial relations in the public service would lead to more industrial strife and result in more strikes, with taxpayers having to fund every strike and every claim.

Really?

That is not a realistic approach. We have just been talking about Brexit and the challenges that poses for the competitiveness of the Irish economy, both in the public service and the private sector. We have to ensure that we can have companies that run their business commercially. There are identified efficiencies that are recognised on both sides. These issues have to be addressed in an industrial relations forum. We have provided that forum. That has to be the approach that is adopted. If we adopted the Deputy's approach, we would have more and more industrial strife-----

Under the Government's approach, we have industrial chaos.

-----and the Deputy would be the cheerleader for that industrial strife.

It is the Government's privatisation that is doing it, and Fianna Fáil's before it.