The Irish Congress of Trade Unions wants significant increases in employers' PRSI to fund extra childcare, health services, pensions and further benefits for the PAYE sector, when it meets the other social partners in Dublin Castle today.
The ICTU general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells, said last night this would be a way of helping to protect workers' living standards in a non-inflationary way.
Employers' PRSI contributed £1,824 million to the Exchequer last year. Every increase of 1 per cent in the current rates would yield at least £150 million.
Employers' PRSI was at 12.4 per cent in the late 1980s but is now paid at between 12 and 8.5 per cent. During the same period corporation tax has fallen from 38 to 24 per cent and is due to fall to 12.5 per cent by 2003. Mr Cassells said that when employers were making record profits they could well afford higher PRSI to help fund better services.
Among the measures likely to be put forward by Congress are the introduction of paid parental leave and paid leave for workers looking after sick or elderly relatives, an extension of paid maternity leave from 14 to 18 weeks, and a pension bond for employees and those on social welfare.
ICTU is to seek a special review of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness at today's plenary meeting of the social partners, which was planned some time ago. The request came originally from its largest affiliate, SIPTU.
The proposed bond would accrue interest at the same rate as growth in GNP and could be used by employees to start a pension scheme or augment an existing one. It could be cashed by old-age pensioners or used by unemployed people to help finance education or retraining.
ICTU will continue to call for reductions in excise duty and VAT on selected items, increased subsidies for public transport so that fares can be reduced, a "mortgage guarantee" to protect new home buyers from interest rises and better healthcare.
Its approach will go some way to meet demands from the community and voluntary "fourth pillar" to the PPF, that any review be used to provide "substantial" increases in social welfare and child benefit.
While there are no demands a this stage for a pay review, ICTU will seek greater flexibility from employers on profit-sharing schemes. At present there are only 48,600 people in a total workforce of 1.6 million in such schemes.
Mr Cassells admitted that the PPF was probably not the ideal vehicle for tackling inflation. He said he would be appealing to employers and other social partners to approach the problem in a "problem-solving, non-confrontational way". The biggest danger would be to "get bogged down in the specifics of the agreement".
This was clearly a reference to the initial response from the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation to the request for a special review of the PPF from SIPTU. At that time IBEC's director general-designate, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, pointed out there was no specific provision for a pay review.