No task force to tackle unrest in transport sector, says Donohoe

Minister for transport Paschal Donohoe has ruled out setting up a task force to deal with strikes and unrest in the transport sector.

Mr Donohoe said such a move would undermine the work of the labour courts and the Workplace Relations Commission. Instead he said it was “vital that any minister stand behind the institutions that we have set up to deal with industrial relations”.

He said it was the role of government to look at what measures could make “those institutions even more robust and successful than they have been to date”.

“For any minister to undermine that would then leave that minister open to the charge that they were undermining industrial relations in the country and exposing the taxpayer to potentially even higher cost”.

Bus dispute

Asked if a task force had worked in the past, he replied that there was “one issue of a task force in relation to one Dublin Bus dispute” but said in that case the workers had voted in favour of a solution put to them.

This he said was at odds with the “difficult and different” Luas strike where very few union members voted for a resolution brokered by the Workplace Relations Commission. “And that is why a continued theme for me in how this matter will be resolved will be the continued role of the WRC and the Labour court in this issue,” he added.

Fianna Fáil’s Transport spokesman Timmy Dooley said at the weekend that a task force should be established to bring about a resolution of the Luas and Iarnród Éireann disputes. Mr Dooley said such action had proven successful in the past and he urged the Government to try harder in pursuit of a resolution.