No other country in Europe has protections for workers as strong as those agreed to date in talks on a new partnership deal, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said yesterday.
Mr Ahern used his address to the biennial conference of Impact in Killarney, Co Kerry, to deliver a strong defence of social partnership and to urge those involved to be "flexible and creative" in negotiating a new pay deal.
Employers, unions and Government officials meet tomorrow afternoon in an attempt to secure a deal on pay, which would form part of an overall social partnership programme.
Mr Ahern, who was given a warm reception by the Impact delegates, said the parties were close to agreeing a package of measures designed to underpin employment standards, which would be delivered in the context of any new agreement. Many of the key features were already well-known, he said, such as the proposals to establish a new statutory Office of the Director for Employment Rights and treble the number of labour inspectors, to 90.
Significant increases in penalties for breaches of employment law, regulation of employment agencies and new legislation in relation to certain types of redundancies and dismissals in the context of industrial disputes were also planned, he pointed out.
"I believe that these and a range of other measures still under discussion could provide strong protection for employment standards."
Departing from his script, Mr Ahern said there was no other country in Europe looking at similar protections for workers.
"In fact most countries would be doing the opposite," he said. Nevertheless, the measures proposed had his "wholehearted support".
"There is no government, either capitalist, socialist, liberalist or whatever they like to call themselves, that is trying to do this in this particular way. And I think it is a credit to the trade union movement, and to the Government for that matter . . . that we are looking at these particular measures."
Mr Ahern said social partnership was a "winning formula" that had made an enormous contribution to the economic and social development of the State.
"While local commentators are too often dismissive of it, I find it remarkable that wherever I go around the world, prime ministers, business leaders and trade unionists want to find out how it works. Can they all be wrong?"
He hoped progress could be made in the talks taking place tomorrow, so that overall negotiations could be concluded.
"However, I understand that there is a considerable difference between the sides on the parameters of a pay agreement, as well as on some significant non-pay items."
The Taoiseach also emphasised the need for a new agreement to give fresh impetus to modernisation of the public service.
"It must facilitate the kind of imaginative and flexible service delivery that our citizens require, and that the taxpayer has paid for," he said.
Responding to Mr Ahern's address, Impact general secretary Peter McLoone said the union had never stood in the way of change.
"After three years of zero industrial unrest in the public services, a period that has seen many changes including longer opening hours and the introduction of Civil Service performance management linked to pay, we are tired of being told that nothing was given in exchange for benchmarking. Nothing could be further from the truth," he said.
Mr McLoone, who is current president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, echoed the Taoiseach's comments about social partnership, which he said was still solving so-called intractable problems.
