Unions condemn plans to break-up CIE and Aer Rianta

UNIONS have condemned Government plans to break up CIE and Aer Rianta.

However, despite threats from delegates, Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) general secretary David Begg warned workers against taking extreme action.

During a sometimes emotional debate on the issue at the ICTU conference, Mr Begg pointed to the failure of the farmers’ tractor protest to make any real impact.

The Government is expected to decide the issue in the next month and conference passed an emergency motion condemning Transport Minister Seamus Brennan’s ‘ideologically-driven privatisation campaign’ to dismantle CIE and privatise the Dublin bus service.

The motion - tabled jointly by the SIPTU, IMPACT, TEEU and MANDATE unions - also condemned plans to break up Aer Rianta into three separate companies and to build a privatised terminal at Dublin Airport. SIPTU vice president Jack O’Connor said confrontation could be avoided if the Government complied with its obligations under Sustaining Progress.

He claimed the Government had breached the agreement whereby it had committed itself to early consultation - without conceding the trade union position - prior to any decisions affecting semi-state companies.

“It took Minister Seamus Brennan no more than nine days to sever that agreement,” he declared. Mr O’Connor said the minister’s initiatives in relation to CIE, Dublin Bus and Aer Rianta were not supported by the Public Transport Forum, or any of the five separate, independent reports on aviation landing facilities.

“The quality and security of employment of thousands of workers are affected by these decisions which have far reaching implications for our economy and society,” he went on.

Other speakers said if the Government got its way in privatising public transport, many parts of rural Ireland would be left without any type of adequate public bus, or rail system.

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) also came under fire at the conference, in Tralee, with Frank Gallagher, of the GPMU, describing them as little more than privatisation by stealth and by the back door. “PPPs are being used and abused as a first step towards all-out privatisation,” he remarked.