INTERVIEW:RICHARD BRUTON projects himself as a moderniser who also has a sense of tradition and this is reflected on his desk in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on Dublin's Kildare Street. Side-by-side with a bottle of ink and a fountain pen he has the latest in hot-ticket technology – an iPad.
With a recession under way and unemployment rampant, the 58-year-old Dublin North Central TD has the unenviable task of promoting job creation.
Bruton is a man with a mission, some would say “mission impossible”. He is the prime mover in an Action Plan on Jobs to be launched in a few weeks’ time and the Minister claims the project is “very much on track”.
But he is keen to stress that this is not a “one-off” set of proposals that gets published and then gathers dust. The Government is committed to a plan which will continue year-on-year.
This process will span the life of this Government and will focus on “the changes necessary to make jobs a priority in this society”. With a nod to the word “innovation” in his job title, he says the plan will look well beyond traditional enterprise policy areas.
There will be nine departments directly involved each year: “They will have timelines and be monitored rigorously, with the involvement both of the Taoiseach’s department and my own.
“And at the beginning of the following year, the work on assessing the success, developing new ideas, identifying obstacles, will emerge in an action plan for 2013.”
Far from being an add-on to the work of government, he sees job creation as the “central thesis” of the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition: “Fixing the banks and the public finances is all very well but they are constraints on our core objective which is to sort out people’s lives and get them back to work.”
As regards the Coalition and the Labour Party, there have been well-publicised difficulties with the junior partner over the process of setting wages in certain sectors, but Bruton is confident the problem over the Joint Labour Committees (JLCs) has been resolved. “We introduced legislation to the Dáil before Christmas to reform them. I expect it will commence its passage in the coming weeks.
“Reform is always difficult, either people are unhappy or they resist change. But there’s no doubt that the wage-setting mechanism which developed from the 1940s wasn’t suitable to the environment that we’re now in.
“It was seeking to set something like 300 different wage rates. It had rigid approaches to areas like Sunday working, where the law had moved on. There were much more flexible approaches available to those who weren’t in these regulated sectors.
“I think what’s important is that we will have a fit-for-purpose mechanism that protects people who are vulnerable but is flexible enough to respond to new job opportunities. Many of the job opportunities are in areas like tourism where these JLCs have been particularly important.”
He acknowledges that the Labour Party is taking a very close interest in these developments: “They are, but I always sought to strike a balance between protecting vulnerable workers and creating employment opportunities, and I think that balance was always recognised.
“We needed to make those reforms. Obviously people will take a stand along the spectrum but a lot of consensus has emerged since the original debate, and we now have a Bill agreed.”
With reference to the jobs plan, he points out that the Taoiseach has taken “an intense interest” and the pair have “worked very closely” on it.
So does he regret taking part in a “heave” against Enda Kenny’s leadership of Fine Gael in 2010? “You make decisions at the time and you accept the decision of the party, we’re part of a democratic party which makes these decisions from time to time,” he says.
Bruton insists it never became a personal matter: “Enda and myself have always got on very well, throughout that heave, before, after and continuing. One of the features of our personalities is that, you know, it was business, if you like, at the time.”
He accepts Kenny has been generous to those who opposed him: “Enda has been very generous throughout his political career. He’s not a man who bears grudges.”
I put it to him that, considering Albert Reynolds sacked eight ministers in one day, Kenny has made a real effort at healing divisions: “He has, absolutely, and I think he always has taken the view that he will use the talent that he has at his disposal in the best way possible. I have nothing but praise for his role as Taoiseach and his management of the party.”
Bruton is cautious and diplomatic when asked about the Croke Park agreement on public sector pay and conditions.
“The focus at the moment is delivering reform in the public service area, using the flexibilities that Croke Park has offered, and that’s the approach that Government has taken for 2012,” he says.
Asked if he could foresee a situation where the Government might have to seek to renegotiate the deal, he replies: “In changed circumstances, that’s always on the cards, but I think there are important flexibilities in Croke Park which we need to use to manage change.”
