THE dark clouds of industrial unrest, reminiscent of the 1984-87, period, are gathering over the rainbow coalition, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, has claimed.
Senior trade union leaders had in recent weeks spoken out, strongly against a Budget and Government that had "failed to honour the commitments in the Programme for Competitiveness and Work", he added.
In a warning that this could signal a major breakdown in social consensus, Mr Ahern also said that the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton was "well known for his former aversion to and dismissal of national understandings".
According to Mr Ahern, when Mr Bruton was Opposition leader he described these national consensus programmes as representing "the triumph of bureaucracy over enterprise" and as being as exciting as a reheated TV dinner These and other quotations demonstrated how Mr Bruton "despised the very basis of national understandings".
"Solemn warnings from the unions and the dismissive inaction of the Government do not bode well for our industrial peace so dearly bought in terms of the effort put by so many into making social partnership work", Mr Ahern added.
The PAYE sector will pay an extra £200 million in tax this year, he said. The average PAYE bill is now £4,087 and in 1996, people will still enter the higher tax rate at the same level of real income as in 1993. The marginal widening of the tax bands was cancelled out by the abolition of other reliefs while social welfare increases combined over the last two years barely kept pace with the rise in inflation, Mr Ahern added.