Essential services and Brexit
Senator Quinn urges scrutiny of possible strike restrictions affecting essential services and asks the House to prepare for the economic consequences of a possible British exit from the EU.
A few months ago I tabled a Bill which received some attention but which was not accepted. It had to do with essential services and to ban the willingness of workers to have a strike that would affect essential services. There was a good debate on the Bill and a good discussion about the various aspects of it, but it seems to be something on which the Government should keep its eye. It should be aware that this can be a significant threat.
We have a ban on striking in the Garda and the Army. It appears it is possible to consider a ban on that basis also. I am reminded of it because yesterday five of the larger airlines in Europe united to ensure air traffic controllers could not close down the airlines. It is not the airlines that were going on strike but the air traffic controllers. Michael O'Leary instanced the fact that there were 3,000 flight cancellations this year which affected 600,000 passengers. It is something we should consider. In the case of essential services we should be able to ensure certain strikes do not happen.
A point of interest is that Prime Minister Tsipras of Greece told us today that his wife threatened to leave him if he gave way on the economic front. It seems this is a powerful method. He said he was not going to give way solely because his wife would leave him. Perhaps it is something we should take into account.
Comment on this
We should discuss quite soon the challenge to us if Britain leaves the European Union. That will not happen until next year if it has a referendum, but it could happen. We should take contingency measures and watch what we should do to ensure the economy is protected if that happens.