Protests took place in Dublin and Galway today against Government spending cuts.
Some 1,500 people participated in an Ictu protest outside the Dáil. Marchers gathered at the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank in St Stephen's Green before marching to Leinster House.
The "Jobs Not Cuts" march was supported by the Labour Party, Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Right To Work Campaign and a majority of Dublin City councillors.
The action was organised in response to a call from the European Trade Union Confederation for protests against austerity measures throughout the EU.
Speaking ahead of the protest at Leinster House, Congress called on the Government to abandon its current fiscal strategy for economic recovery and to adopt a new more credible plan.
President Jack O'Connor said that the Government's current fiscal plan had not worked and was “a route to self destruction”.
General secretary David Begg said the Government’s economic recovery strategy was "too austere and was killing any potential for growth”.
He said Congress had been making this argument for the past two years and the position was being vindicated and supported by the international press.
Congress said as an alternative strategy the Government should shift focus to revenue forces that would not take vast sums of money out of the economy.
It called for new temporary progressive tax measures on capital and wealth and it also called for an injection into the economy from off balance sheet sources. It said this could include using a portion of money in the National Pension Reserve Fund to provide equity for new enterprises and to protect existing businesses.
Mr O'Connor said the Government had cynically and deliberately allowed unemployment to rise relentlessly in order to drive down wage costs in the hope of bringing about recovery through export led growth.
Mr Begg will be among representatives from about 50 international trade unions at a march today in Brussels , which will culminate in a demonstration in the city’s European quarter near the headquarters of the EU Commission and the European Council.
In Galway, a protest by Siptu and the community and voluntary sector was held in Eyre Square this afternoon.
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed formed a symbolic dole queue outside the Dáil today. “We are calling on the Government to guarantee that no further cuts will be made to social welfare payments in this year’s budget,” said organisation spokesman John Stewart.