Senator Gerard Craughwell - speech from 24 Nov 2020

Leader, I have been fulsome in my praise for Minister Coveney and the work he's doing with the Defence Forces and I remain in that position. However, I was deeply disappointed this weekend to learn that national pay talks, at least that's what we believe, national pay talks have started and contrary to the position Minister Coveney took where the Defence Forces would be at the table from the beginning, they were not. and were not even aware of the fact that pay talks had started and my understanding is department officials were not aware of the fact that pay talks had started. The same applies to the Gardaí. Now, this places general secretaries in these representative bodies in a most difficult situation with their members. So, I would like you to come to the House tomorrow if you can, Leader, and advise us where pay talks are. Have they started? If they have, who's involved? And why are those that are not affiliated to ICTU, not involved on a peer equal level? Which is what I was given to understand would be the case, because we are at the moment preventing these organisations from being affiliated to ICTU. The other thing, Leader, you might organise in the not-too-distant future, the Search and Rescue contract for the country is due to be renewed for 2023. The current contract is going to cost somewhere around about £630 million and at the end of the 10 years we will have had 10 years excellent service with respect to Search and Rescue, but we will have nothing else to show for it. A group of concerned people, chaired by myself, are now interested in bringing the Air Corps back into Search and Rescue, mandating the top cover service by the Air Corps on a rostered basis and ensuring that they have the resources. So, if we could have the Minister for Transport in here to discuss this, I'd appreciate that. Thank you, Leader. Thank you, Leader.