For almost a year now, all the Taoiseach's speeches about the economy have been accompanied by a little catch phrase along these lines, "As we approach full employment, our emphasis now has to be on good jobs, jobs that pay the bills, jobs that allow people to aspire to homeownership and pensions that allow them to plan for the future." Obviously, someone told him this was a great one-liner because he has been repeating it ad nauseam for almost a year. The truth, however, is that it means nothing. Behind the figures he boasts about, there lurks a dark underworld - a battlefield for an almighty assault on the working conditions of workers, particularly women, in this country. This week marks its escalation, with a number of industrial disputes brought about as a result of brute intransigence by profitable companies refusing to negotiate with unions or to deal with the industrial relations machinery of the State. Actually, it is becoming quite a trend. The first is Lloyds Pharmacy, the largest pharmacy chain in the country. It has 800 staff, 92% of whom are women. It is owned by a multibillion dollar US pharmaceutical giant. This company is in modern "On the Waterfront". There are no guaranteed hours. One can be brought in to work any day at any time. If one is sick, tough. The company will not pay one if one is sick, forcing many low-paid workers to work sick in a job where they interface with sick people. One could not make it up. Since February 2017, the company has refused to negotiate with Mandate and it is now blatantly ignoring a Labour Court recommendation. Of course, it does not have any problems at all in accepting the State when it comes to putting its hand out for the significant HSE community contracts from which it profits.

Meanwhile, in the Taoiseach's neck of the woods, another group of workers being forced to take action are those at Ryanair. They are due to take that action on Thursday next. We note the irony of Ryanair, the company that wrote the manual on blackmail and bullying, accusing its pilots of bullying. Is Ryanair serious? The pilots are simply demanding a master seniority list, something that costs the company nothing but that would provide a transparent mechanism for dealing with base transfers, command upgrades, holidays and the like, which have a major impact on family life. Of course, Ryanair wants to keep it so that it can continue to bully its staff. As a former Minister with responsibility for transport, the Taoiseach knows well the root cause of this dispute. Precarious employment contracts are being used to deny pilots and cabin crew basic employment rights, such as the rights not to be dismissed unfairly and to maternity leave. We are unique in Ireland in facilitating such employment contracts.

It is about time the Taoiseach started to deal with this rather than talking about it. We are becoming infamous as a flag of convenience for social dumping. I want to know what the Government is doing, against the backdrop of employers abandoning the voluntary industrial relations system, to ensure that workers have access to collective bargaining and a right to have their employment conditions protected.

I am delighted Deputy Clare Daly is reading my speeches. I often need to say the same things many times before anyone picks up on them. Nobody told me it was a great one-liner. I wrote that one myself and I did so because I believe it.

The spin machine.

Was it like the one-liner last week?

One is always one's own best speechwriter.

The Taoiseach should rethink that one.

Can we have order, please?

Let me pick up on some of the points the Deputy raised. Let us look at the facts - the CSO statistics. The unemployment rate peaked at 16% in 2012 when people had trusted Fine Gael, the Independent Alliance and Independents to manage the country's economy. It is now down to 5%. The long-term unemployment rate is 2%. For the past year or so, the number of full-time jobs has been increasing and the number of part-time jobs has been decreasing. We heard from the left consistent arguments that people were drifting into part-time work.

The facts say otherwise because part-time work is decreasing and full-time work is increasing. In addition, the number of people in self-employment as a proportion of the entire workforce is stable, so the suggestion that more people are being pushed into self-employment does not stand up. The proportion of people in self-employment is as much as it was many years ago.

To answer the Deputy's question about what we are doing, workers' rights legislation is currently being brought through the Houses by the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty. It deals with matters such as zero-hour contracts and banded hours. It is before the Dáil and I hope Members will co-operate with the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, in getting it passed before the recess this week. Second, the Cabinet subcommittee yesterday signed off on the straw man proposal, the draft proposal for auto-enrolment. There is an enormous inequality in Irish society at present where two thirds of people working in the private sector have no pension provision other than the State pension. People in the public sector generally have good, guaranteed pensions. We signed off yesterday on our proposals to change that by enrolling automatically everybody over the age of 23 years in a pension scheme, a top-up pension that they can add to their State pension, with the requirement that the employer contributes as well as the person who will benefit in the end. The State will also make a contribution. I look forward to the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, producing that, getting agreement on it and drafting the legislation so we can introduce it in 2021 or 2022.

With regard to the specific industrial relations issues the Deputy raised, as always I strongly encourage both sides, the unions and employers, to make use of the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. It is a State body that stands ready to intervene and to help resolve these disputes. I ask both sides to engage with the WRC, which is more than willing, capable and qualified to help broker a solution in the interests of citizens.

I have no problem with the Taoiseach repeating his soundbites, if they are his, as much as he wishes if that is what he is into, but a soundbite does not put food on the table. Statistics show, as Social Justice Ireland did earlier this year, that as the economy has recovered more people at work are in poverty. Over 100,000 workers at work are in poverty because of zero-hour contracts and precarious contracts of employment. My question was about that issue. The Labour Court recovered almost €2 million in unpaid wages last year for vulnerable women workers in particular. Talking about new legislation is good and we welcome that legislation. However, the point the Taoiseach is missing is that it is not enough when employers are deliberately ignoring the industrial relations machinery of the State.

In the case of Lloyds Pharmacy, for example, why does the Taoiseach not say that those who do business with the Government, the HSE or otherwise should, as a minimum condition, treat their workers fairly, not have zero-hour contracts and adhere to the principles of equality? We should be doing ethical business. If the Taoiseach inserts such clauses in State contracts I guarantee that he will do more for the working conditions of people in the State than through any other measure he might take. It is a little ironic that we talk about measures such as changes to the constitutional clause regarding women in the home and so forth when we ignore, in particular, the areas where women work and the number of women who are exploited because of the failure to recognise unions. Lloyds Pharmacy recognises the union of its male workers in the distribution depots, where wages are good, but not the women's union. People do not want the Taoiseach's soundbites or his talk. They want to see a little action on some of this.

The Deputy is absolutely right that soundbites do not put food on the table - jobs do. There are more people at work in Ireland than ever in our history. Almost 2.3 million people are now at work. The working family payment for those in low paid jobs with families, and we improved that payment this year, ensures that people who are in work, do 19 hours work or more every week and who have children are kept out of poverty. That is the reason we have the working family payment. The CSO is not a NGO or a lobby group. It produces official statistics and those statistics show that poverty and deprivation in Ireland are falling and inequality and income inequality are narrowing. Those things should be welcomed.

I acknowledge we have more to do: there is always more work to do. We intend to do that work by continuing to build employment, continuing to increase wages and improve incomes, continuing to give more people their money back through reductions in taxation, reducing the cost of accessing public services such as childcare and healthcare and by putting through the type of legislation being brought forward by the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, to enhance workers' rights, ban zero-hour contracts in almost all circumstances and to introduce banded hours. All of those measures are very much part of the Government's programme to improve living standards. I ask the Opposition to co-operate with the Government in getting that legislation through.