The SIPTU president, Mr Jimmy Somers, has accused the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, of treating Partnership 2000 with contempt and of "chipping away at its very foundations". Mr Somers's attack highlights the widening gap between the Government and the State's largest union over how the taxation element of the national agreement should be implemented.
The union condemned Mr McCreevy's Budget last Wednesday, within hours of its delivery, ail, because the increases in personal allowances and widening of the standard-rate tax band fell almost £1,000 short of the levels promised in Partnership 2000.
On RTE radio's Saturday View, Mr McCreevy and SIPTU's vice-president, Mr Des Geraghty, clashed over the tax elements of the agreement.
Mr McCreevy rejected SIPTU's interpretation of Partnership 2000 again on Monday night's Questions and Answers programme. Yesterday Mr Somers said Mr McCreevy could not just dismiss the union's views on tax reform as a popular economic theory he did not care to go along with.
"In doing so the Minister, once again, flew in the face of principles underlying Partnership 2000, and he is specifically rejecting the conclusions of the National Economic and Social Council on this critical issue," Mr Somers said.
"All parties represented on that council, not only trade unions but also employers and all key Government Departments, including Finance, unambiguously concluded that coupled with a reduction in the low rate of tax, increases in tax allowances were the best way forward.
"The Minister makes frequent references to having been elected to implement a particular programme of government, but that programme also committed the Minister to uphold the Partnership 2000 agreement."
SIPTU's executive is meeting on Thursday week to consider its position, in the light of last week's Budget.
While some members will probably call for withdrawal from Partnership 2000, the union is likely to look for other ways of pressurising the Government into making more tax concessions for low- and middle-income groups.