UNIONS:THE ELECTION of a single-party Fine Gael government would be "a recipe for disaster", the head of the country's largest trade union has said.
Siptu president Jack O’Connor said yesterday while the great majority of people in Fine Gael were good and well-intentioned, the party was committed to the deflationary principles of the outgoing Fianna Fáil administration.
The best option for the country would be “a balanced government”, which he defined as a Labour/Fine Gael administration.
Mr O’Connor said Siptu’s analysis for its members was that this could only be achieved “by voting Labour and continuing preferences to parties committed to social solidarity. Otherwise, we will end up with another government doing pretty much the same thing as the outgoing one did.”
Mr O’Connor said what was needed was a government that reflected the balance of interests at play in the population.
“The last time that the party that seems to be heading towards forming a government was in power was between 1927 and 1932, and the effect of their policy was to condemn our country to 60 years of unemployment, emigration and misery. That will be the effect of continuing the policy pursued by Brian Lenihan over the past 2½ years . . . ”
The general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, David Begg, said his organisation did not make recommendations to members in relation to the general election. He said the position of the Labour Party was closest to that of Ictu on a number of issues.
However, he said it wanted the deadline for dealing with the public finances extended to 2017, while Labour had set an earlier date of 2016.
Mr Begg said the current austerity programme represented “a jobs destruction programme” that would prevent economic growth from taking hold.
He said without growth there would be no jobs.
Launching Ictu’s plan for a “better, fairer way to recovery”, Mr Begg said a new government must commit to reversing the drive for austerity because it just did not work.
He said that after four austerity budgets there was higher unemployment, a bigger deficit and 1,000 people a week emigrating.
He said the deadline for addressing the public finances should be extended to 2017 as the timeframe was too short.
He said €2 billion per year over three years should be invested in projects that would create jobs and upgrade infrastructure, such as a national water utility, a nationwide next-generation broadband system, a national programme for retrofitting homes and key transport links such as Metro North.
Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton said Mr O’Connor and other trade unions “should be worried” if her party was elected to government, as it would put the taxpayers’ interests ahead of the vested interests.
“Jack O’Connor and other wealthy union officials may well dread the prospect of Fine Gael in government as we will not put their interests first.
“Union bosses may pine for the days when they had an undue influence on government policy. The fiasco of public service benchmarking and the social partnership is the sorry legacy of this cosy relationship.
“It has left us with a bloated Civil Service and an unaffordable public sector wage bill.”
Ms Creighton suggested that in government, Labour would not be prepared to tackle the unions because of their close financial ties to the party.