Begg Tells Taoiseach: ‘Reform is Not Just for the Little People’

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Congress General Secretary David Begg has told Taoiseach Enda Kenny
that the official response to the economic crisis to date has
ignored the financial systems that caused the meltdown and has
focused instead on cutting incomes for low earners.

The Taoiseach was addressing some 800 delegates, observers and guests
at the Congress Biennial Delegate 2011 at the INEC, Killarney. Mr Begg
said that the European Social Model at the heart of the European
project was being “torn asunder” by the same neoliberals whose
deregulation of Europe’s financial system had led to the current crisis.
He condemned the attempt by the bailout troika to make an “Ireland into
economic laboratory in which they can pursue the neoliberal experiment.”
He said it was an experiment driven entirely by ideology.

Thus far, the official response across Europe had been to penalise
working people by trying to cut wages and whittle away protections that
had been built up over years. Mr Begg said this focus was illustrated in
the controversy over proposed ‘reforms’ of the Joint Labour Committees
(JLCs). He deplored the fact that those pushing the ‘reform agenda’ had
utterly failed to bring forward any evidence to support their case and
in fact, as the Duffy/ Walsh report made clear, the weight of evidence
was entirely “on the other side.”

In place of evidence, opportunistic employers were substituting anecdotes
to support their case. Mr Begg warned that it would be “very dangerous”
for Government to proceed to make policy in relation to the JLCs based on
“anecdotes and scare stories.” Mr Begg said working people were seeing all
the security they had built up over the years being eroded, in terms of
pensions, old age security and educating their children.

In relation to Northern Ireland, he requested the Taoiseach use his
influence with the UK government to stop planned budget cuts, saying that
“this was not the time to cut and was too dangerous.” He concluded by
telling the Taoiseach that the austerity programme was not working and
that some form of stimulus was needed in the economy. Earlier, the
Taoiseach had praised the work of Congress in Northern Ireland, over
recent decades and said he planned further meetings with Congress in the
context of building “a good dialogue” with unions.