Any successor to Partnership 2000 must be about sharing the wealth of the State more fairly, the Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, told the conference dinner of SIPTU last night.
Looking back, he said that he resented "some of the political decisions I and my party were forced to take in the 1980s because some of the brightest and wealthiest people were piggy-backing on the rest of society by not paying their fair share of tax like the rest of us".
He said that the next six months would be "crucial" for the future. Decisions taken now "will determine our ambitions and agenda for the next millennium". He welcomed the decision of SIPTU to enter new talks, but he feared that the Government did not yet realise how radically different any new agreement must be from what had gone before.
Mr Quinn also called on the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to "finally and unequivocally distance himself from a former Taoiseach and party leader whose behaviour with taxpayers' money, at a time when others did without, is being revealed as more obscene and venal with the passing of each day".
Earlier, SIPTU general secretary Mr John McDonnell said that whatever form new tax protests took, they must be effective.
"Twenty years ago the Government and employers basically refused to sit down and negotiate on tax reform", he said. "The climate has changed. People realise now that those in power were paying no tax while ordinary workers, some of them on low pay, had to pay tax all their working lives and were now having to pay tax on their pensions."
SIPTU has passed an emergency motion calling on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to hold mass protests over the tax scandals. The Dublin Council of Trade Unions is to discuss a proposal that tax demonstrations be accompanied by work stoppages when it meets next Tuesday.