In ten days’ time, SIPTU members across health, local government, State agencies and education will take to the picket line and strike.
At the heart of our dispute is a demand, most modest: working people should not be expected to fall further behind and our public services continue to be run down and fall further behind our EU partners.
The cost of living crisis for ordinary workers is pushing many into greater debt and week to week living. Public services must be reinvigorated. Profiteering from services such as bin collection and childcare must end, and where these services can be best provided under public control we must move towards that.
Rent, mortgages, fuel, food, energy, childcare and transport are impoverishing a generation that is more productive than any other.
Making ends meet remains a daily struggle for the majority of working people and their families.
Public service workers are experiencing the same pressures.
On top of this, they are being asked to deliver essential services while dealing with staffing shortages and a rapid demand for services.
This is why the Union Strike kicking off in ten days’ time matter beyond the public service.
Public service workers are the vanguard of a wider fight for better living standards for all.
When workers unionise to protect their pay, they are standing up for something that reaches far beyond their own workplaces: economic growth must translate into better lives for all working people. No excuses.
This requires a Government prepared to act.
Too often, this “do nothing” Government has offered announcements where workers need action.
Look at transport. SIPTU has won the argument through our Respect Transport Workers campaign for a properly resourced Transport Police Service because workers and passengers deserve to be safe. Government has committed to establishing such a service, yet transport workers continue to face abuse and antisocial behaviour while promised reform remains undelivered.
We need more than announcements and Ministerial photo ops.
We need properly funded and staffed public services. We need new services to close the growing gaps and we need good wages and conditions for the workers who provide them.
This is not simply a public-service agenda.
It is a workers’ agenda.
Our Union is a democratic organisation. Our members voted overwhelmingly to give their representatives a mandate for industrial action, including strike action.
Ten days from now, hundreds of thousands of voices will become one.
We will strike for a fair deal for public service workers but also for something much bigger: an Ireland that really works and delivers for the people who keep our country running.
Whatever happens in Tuesday’s Budget the form suggests the cost-of-living crisis is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Over to you Minister.