While there are many industrial relations problems, the progress achieved in that area is a tribute to the Labour Court and to the respect in which it is held, to which Senator Cox referred and whose view was endorsed by Senator Coghlan and I am sure by Senator Quinn. The problems besetting industrial relations in Iarnr d ireann are not a matter for the Minister of State in the sense that he is not responsible for the operation of that company, although he would have an input into industrial relations machinery and how it addresses what seems to be a deeply flawed industrial relations environment in our major transport company. I hope this Bill, strengthened as it is from its consideration in this House and in the D il, may act as a catalyst to help resolve the difficulties besetting our national transport company. I am sure the Minister of State will agree that in this millennium such a vital service as transport cannot continue to be bedevilled by a breakdown in industrial relations each time one section of workers, looking over their shoulders at another section of workers in the same company, decides they will not operate the mandate they have been employed to do. I am thinking specifically of the decision taken by the mainline train drivers to sign up to an agreement and within a short period of weeks, when their colleagues operating the DART service signed up to an improved and different agreement, they decided they would institute strike action with the company.
Someone somewhere is to be blamed for that.
Much of the blame in that instance lies with Iarnr d ireann management. How could a company in the modern era decide it would treat one group of workers different from another group of workers. The Senator is wandering a long way from the amendment. The Senator may speak only to the amendments by the D il. This is important legislation.