ESB smash-and-grab may plunge us all into a republic of darkness

THE logical thing to do to help out the ESB workers, and save ourselves from the prospect of dreaded power cuts, is to pay our bills directly to the unions.

That way they could then forward what they think the company is entitled to and in future settle the question of pay among themselves without the inconvenience of negotiations.

I know it might appear selfish on our part, but the lads are willing to look after a good slice of the company - indeed they’re insisting on it - in return for just a miserable 18.5% pay increase. Where else would you get such altruism?

Seeing as how they want 20% of the company, it might not be too long anyway before they’re negotiating with themselves.

Unless we do something as radical as that, and practically hand over the company to them, some of the unfortunate ESB workers will feel compelled to go on strike next Monday.

Your usual Monday depression will not be relieved by a couple of cups of coffee unless talks among the unions, management and the Government - due to take place this morning - introduce a major dose of commonsense.

The unions are seeking to have the workers’ current 5% share in the company increased by 14.9% and, from next Monday, about 2,300 members of the ESB Officers’ Association (ESBOA) will risk the exigencies of an Irish summer to picket in furtherance of that laudable aim - as well as the 18.5% wage increase they are looking for.

Although the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is doing its best for them in trying to resolve the dispute, the ESBOA general secretary, Tony Dunne, said the union had a strike notice in effect and had to continue with its own plans.

Because the workers got no change from the ESB or the Department of Communications, the rest of the ESB group of unions - representing more than 8,000 workers altogether - could be provoked into a similar mode.

The secretary of the group, Paddy Reilly, said they had discussions with the ESB and the department over the last couple of months and they had come to a conclusion that there was no conclusion. So obviously the only way out is to wreak vengeance on the consumer to try to make the powers that be see the logic of the unions’ case - which is that they had agreed to 4,000 job losses in the last 10 years of structural change with further painful changes in the next three to four years.

The ESB workers are not the only ones to have experienced pain in recent years, and the difference with them is the scale of it all because of the size of the company.

At least the ESB workers have no ambitions - yet - to take over the entire company, unlike some of the managers in Aer Lingus.

I presume the Government still owns the national airline, so I fail to understand why it had to seek written promises from those managers in Aer Lingus not to advance their proposal to take the state airline private.

While there has been a lot of talk about the future of Aer Lingus, no decision has yet been taken to privatise it. What happened this week was that the Cabinet set up a sub-committee to consider the buyout approach from Willie Walsh and his group. The sub-committee is headed up by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. It also includes Tánaiste Mary Harney, Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy; Transport Minister Seamus Brennan, and the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O’Donoghue.

It’s difficult to understand Seamus Brennan when he said that the written assurances from Mr Walsh and his colleagues would ensure there was no conflict of interest between their current role and their desire to take the company private. He said that one of the things the Cabinet subcommittee would have to consider was the appropriateness of senior management remaining in place were they to be involved in such a process.

His primary concern was to guard against any conflict of interest and protect the interests of the Government as the dominant shareholder in the airline. Such a written assurance from the managerial group is rather like getting an assurance from an undertaker that he won’t bury you until you’re dead. He knows he’s going to do it - it’s just a matter of when.

They have announced they want to take over the airline and they intend to do just that. All they have to do is convince the Government to sell it to them.

At the moment the Taoiseach is remaining dumb on the Walsh proposal, but Mary Harney has left open the possibility that she would consider the approach but added that all proposals should be considered.

Seamus Brennan, who is the minister responsible for the airline, declared himself in favour of the principle of allowing Mr Walsh to take part in a transparent process to privatise the airline and said he assumed that was the Government’s position, too.

Why do the words ‘wink,’ ‘nod’ and ‘blind horse’ come to mind? Maybe because Seamus Brennan mentioned the words ‘transparent’ and ‘Government position’ in the one breath, and we know they don’t sit well together. They were never comfortable together.

NOT comfortable together, either, are most of the country’s publicans and the smoking ban. This was made apparent this week by the owners Fibber Magee’s pub in Galway who allowed customers smoke in defiance of the ban.

When the owner of Doolan’s pub in Cobh, Danny Brogan, said he was going to follow suit, it seemed that a bit of a revolution was about to break out, and that this would be enough to put Health Minister Micheál Martin off his crab claws.

In the cases of both pubs - and of many others around the country - the smoking ban is being blamed for a substantial loss of business. You would almost believe it had nothing to do with the appallingly high price of drink.

Publicans obviously suffer from the delusion that their customers automatically get a wage increase to help them help the bar owners stay in touch with the comfort to which they have become accustomed.

We are all only too well aware that the law of the land says you cannot smoke in a pub, and to do so deliberately would attract a prosecution and fine of €3,000. To ensure compliance, there would be secret police on the look-out for miscreants.

The very first infraction of the law occurred in the heart of our democracy and was perpetrated by one of our legislators. John Deasy, Fine Gael’s then spokesman on justice, lit up in the Dáil bar, and apart from an initial outburst of indignation, nothing else happened.

In the case of the Galway pub, the full brunt of the law was not applied. Instead, the Western Health Board announced that it would seek an injunction against the owners of Fibber Magee’s if, after a couple of warnings, they did not begin to obey the law by yesterday afternoon.

I may be missing something here, but I would have thought the law would take its course in enforcing the smoking ban in Galway, instead of going to the High Court looking for an injunction.

If the 6,000 members of the Vintners Federation of Ireland decided to ignore the ban, there could be chaos in the courts if the only response from the State were the threat of an injunction.

They could do it on a rota basis, which means that the law could be ignored in some part of the country at any given time for months, if not years, to come.