The Government's policy of using the "wholescale importation" of workers from abroad to meet the labour shortage was not correct, SIPTU's president Mr Des Geraghty, said yesterday.
Responding to an Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) report which said the Government should not seek workers from abroad to fill vacancies, Mr Geraghty said the solution to the labour shortage lay in training and attracting unemployed people and married women into the workforce.
"I think they [the ESRI] are right to be cautious. The wholescale importation of hundreds of thousands of workers is not the correct way to go." He said this was especially so given the shortage and cost of accommodation.
"I would place a lot more attention on up-skilling," said Mr Geraghty. "There's a lot of scope in the existing labour force for upgrading jobs."
His emphasis on training was similar to that of IBEC's social policy director, Mr Brendan Butler, who said yesterday that the Government should divert funding from training schemes for unemployed people to training programmes for workers.
Mr Butler said the State had committed £500 million to training, but less than 5 per cent of this was used in programmes for people already in the workforce.
The ESRI's latest quarterly report, published yesterday, said it was better for the economy to slow down and cautioned that State expenditure to attract skilled labour "is not wise".
This conflicts with the policy of the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, who wants to bring 200,000 skilled immigrants into the State by 2006 to achieve National Development Plan targets.
Opening an ICTU/IBEC conference on training yesterday, Ms Harney said the labour shortage must be addressed in a "strategic way".
This required "mobilising potential pools of labour and improving the skills of existing and potential workers".
Speaking after the conference, Mr Butler said there was a "strong case" for seeking workers abroad. However, the arrival of 200,000 workers would bring a further 150,000 family members into the State.
"Can we strike a balance between attracting 350,000 and a recognised problem on the ground? On the basis that we do need these people we have got to have an infrastructure in place to accommodate them."
Meanwhile, an ICTU spokesman rejected an ESRI suggestion that income tax cuts should be postponed until the economy started to slow in 2002 or 2003. This would be contrary to the tax proposals in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, which has been accepted by ICTU and IBEC.
