Absolutely right cormacshaw.
You guys need to sort the
PR battle sharpish. Fighting the "lifestyle battle" will garner little support on this Celtic Tiger era.
Fight the battle on safety grounds alone and you're on a winner. Get the message across to the public that its their safety and their safety alone that is the issue and you've won the hearts and minds battle.
You need some media-friendly senior captain type as your spokesman to hammer home this message, and only this message, at every opportunity. Shouldn't be too difficult to find someone to do this.
However, absolutely what you do not need is some guy, as on RTE Radio 1 a couple of days ago, going on about "my union" and his lifestyle over and over. Totally counter productive.
The public need an education as to what this is really all about. Only yesterday I was talking to someone who thought that the 10 hour rest was after every
sector!!! So do more ads like appeared the other day in the papers, hammer the safety point, drop everything else and you'll win the battle.
Good luck!