Deputy Brid Smith will donated a cheque to workers representatives at 12.45 today at the Dail.

She said “This strike is hugely important for all workers in this country, after 19 days on strike we must insure these workers are not driven back to work or forced to accept a poor deal. The Government have engineered this strike by systemic underfunding and undermining of the national bus company. Their agenda is to drive down wages and conditions and use this as a blueprint for other groups of workers. The entire working class and trade union movement needs to insure this doesn’t happen. We hope this donation will be the start of a larger strike fund that will sustain workers and will allow other workers in CIE to show real solidarity.”

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett said “This is a signal to the powers that be that the wider working class movement will not stand idly by and allow this group of workers to be picked off. Today’s ballot results in Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann will show the importance of solidarity in stopping the race to the bottom in workers’ wages and conditions. This gesture is about us saying we stand with the Bus Eireann workers and we will do everything we can to stop these attacks on their wages and conditions.”

Deputy Gino Kenny stated that this strike had huge implications for all workers “We can’t talk about a deal in the WRC if Shane Ross, the NTA and the government are not at the table. This strike is about a Government that has happily sat back for three weeks and inflicted huge misery on workers and the public; we need them to know they can’t get away with this agenda of cuts and reduction in wages.”