It is possible that corporations made profits in excess of €300 billion in this State last year.

Unfortunately, working people did not fare as well. Yes, most workers got pay increases but the majority of those pay increases did not match the rate of inflation and therefore were de facto pay cuts. Maybe this goes some way to explaining why a majority of people who expressed a view when polled by RedC last week supported the pilots. A group of workers seeking a pay increase from a greedy company making massive profits is something a lot of people can identify with. Aer Lingus made profits of €225 million last year. Its parent company, IAG. made an eye-watering €3.5 billion. Executive pay at Aer Lingus has increased by 66% since 2019 and only yesterday, it was announced that Aer Lingus chief executive officer, Lynne Embleton, had received a €269,000 share bonus just last week. Meanwhile, the pilots have not had a pay increase in five years.

This is the largest industrial dispute seen in this State in the 2020s. It is the biggest clash between the interests of capital and the interests of labour this decade. It is in the interests of every working person that the pilots win their claim. Of course, we have had an orchestra of outrage led by the usual suspects from the capitalist establishment. Aer Lingus said the pilots’ stand was "insidious". Aer Lingus’s great rival, Michael O’Leary, called it "industrial blackmail". The unshockable Tánaiste said it was "shocking". The Taoiseach himself opted for the phrase "utterly reprehensible". Never once did the Taoiseach recognise his own responsibility for the current state of affairs. When Aer Lingus was privatised between 2006 and 2015 who were the parties in power? First, it was Fianna Fáil and the Green Party and then it was Fine Gael and, to its shame, the Labour Party. By selling off the national airline to a corporation, it was the likes of the Taoiseach and his party that opened the door to a scenario where Aer Lingus could quadruple its profits in a year, while holding down wages by more than 20% over five years. The Taoiseach needs to own his own mistake here.

It is back to the Labour Court tomorrow. The Labour Court is no friend of working people in my book. If the pilots can get a cost-of-living increase there, I say good luck to them but I have my doubts. If the pilots are left by Aer Lingus with no choice but to escalate their action, they will continue to have my support. Escalation, if it is necessary, will be greeted in the capitalist press with howls of horror but escalation can serve to bring the dispute to a head more quickly and increase the chance of a settlement that does justice to the pilots' claim, which, as I said, is in the interests of all working people.

I am a bit perplexed. I would say the Deputy must have struggled on this dispute. I did not see this coming but maybe I should have.

It is highly regrettable that any Member of this House would cast an aspersion on the Labour Court. We have a long-standing industrial relations mechanism in this country, with both the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court, that is a key part of the infrastructure. To say the Labour Court is not the friend of the worker is factually untrue. The court is not there to be the friend of anybody, by the way-----

It is true.

Exactly.

It is there to arbitrate, mediate and come up with solutions to very important things and to bring about industrial peace. The Deputy may not be a fan of industrial peace. I place quite a significant value on it. I thank the Deputy for his intervention today.

I know how upsetting this dispute is to people. That is what I think is utterly reprehensible about this, and I say that without casting a view on whether it is the pilots or Aer Lingus. There are always two sides to any dispute; I am very aware of that. Everyone is entitled to have a dispute and everyone is entitled to put in a pay claim but people are entitled to go on their holidays too. There are parents, including in the Deputy’s constituency, who set aside a few bob to go on holiday with their kids and who are now anxiously checking their social media feeds and websites to find out if that holiday can go ahead. I feel for them. It is their side that I am on. It is the side of the travelling public and the people in the Deputy’s constituency who might own a hotel, bed and breakfast, restaurant or café and who are hoping for and relying on tourists coming in over the coming weeks to help them get through what can be a long winter. That is the side we should be on in this House, not deciding to be divisive or to pit one group against the other, but to speak up for our own citizens who are trying to go on holiday and go about their business. There are people in this country in the tourism sector which is particularly dependent.

The Government’s position has been crystal clear. We want to see meaningful engagement. I do not think there has ever been an industrial relations dispute that has been resolved without two things - engagement and compromise.

They are always the ingredients to any solution to any dispute. The question for both parties is whether they wish to do that now and save everybody the pain, the agony, the hassle and the economic impact, or whether they wish to drag this thing out and then end up doing it anyway. There is absolutely no doubt but there will be engagement and compromise; that is how industrial relations dispute are solved. I hope the Deputy will agree with me that the most important thing tomorrow is for both parties to attend the Labour Court in good faith, to engage in the process in a real and meaningful way, to be respectful of the role of the Labour Court, which I am not sure the Deputy was, and to sort this out. Both parties need to stay there as long as it takes until they sort it out. I say to both parties that there needs to be a willingness to compromise and to engage. I very much welcome the fact that parties have agreed to attend together at the Labour Court tomorrow. I thank the Labour Court for the intensive work it has done in the background on this in recent days, and I really hope this can help put the matter on a pathway to resolution before there is any further upset or damage caused to the travelling public or to the Irish economy.

Let us talk about tomorrow. Tomorrow, representatives of Aer Lingus will walk into the Labour Court. This is a company which made €225 million in profits last year and is part of an international group which made €3.5 billion in profit, and its representatives will sit across the table from pilots who have not had a pay increase in five years. Of course, I do not want to see a strike. The pilots do not want to see a strike but the issue is whether they will have the opportunity to go back to work with a decent pay increase which covers the cost-of-living increases in the past five years. If they do, it will be settled. If not, it could be a very different matter.

In order to make the atmosphere better for tomorrow, I will ask the Taoiseach a question. Aer Lingus is leasing planes and crew from non-union airlines such as Privilege Style airline to break the industrial action of the pilots. This is an extremely provocative move, tantamount to union busting. It is opposed both by trade unionists in Ireland and in that airline's country of origin, which is Spain. The Taoiseach talks about the need for compromise and avoiding escalation. Will he give me a straight answer to a straight question? Will he call on Aer Lingus here today on the floor of the Dáil to cease this provocative activity and stop using non-unionised airlines to do this work?

It seems we have the spokesperson for pilots before profit today. I thank Deputy Barry for that intervention. My position is very clear. It is crystal clear and could not be clearer. It is not for me on the floor of the Dáil, or respectfully for the Deputy, though he is perfectly entitled to, to give a view on which side is to blame, to apportion blame or to accuse one side of being provocative. I have not done that. I have stood up and accepted that any worker is entitled to submit a pay claim and of course to use all of the mechanisms available to him or her to seek a resolution. What I am saying though is that it is really important that the opportunity tomorrow is seized. A lot of work has gone into preparing for tomorrow. Late on Friday afternoon, the Labour Court invited Aer Lingus and IALPA to fresh talks. They commenced at 2.30 p.m. yesterday. This follows direct discussions between the parties last week, which broke down following five hours of talks. Discussions between the parties at the Labour Court yesterday concluded some time after 11 p.m. I want to acknowledge the hard yards and long hours everybody put in yesterday, following which we now have the court saying it will formally intervene. It is not for me to now add new aspects to the dispute or new elements that the Deputy wishes to raise today.

To oppose union busting?

It is now reported that the Labour Court has requested that both parties submit final written submissions by close of business today. Let that be the focus, let there be a court hearing tomorrow and let us find a resolution in this dispute for once and for all in order that people can go on their holidays and go about their business.