An infrastructural deficit, a lack of provision for profit-sharing in national wage agreements, and inadequacies in health service provision were threatening to undermine the economy, Mr Derek McDowell, Labour Party spokesman on finance, said yesterday. He was commenting on an Economic and Social Research Institute report which highlights the problems.
Welcoming the report, Mr McDowell said it emphasised the need to rethink priorities which had traditionally dominated national agreements. A greater emphasis on social spending was needed, he said.
The ESRI's Quarterly Economic Commentary states that greater wage flexibility could be achieved through profit-sharing and shared-ownership schemes. But agreement on these issues needs to be reached between the social partners, the report states.
Trade unions have called for the direction of resources towards improved public transport, affordable housing, improved child care and care of the elderly.
Mr Peter Cassells, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said that while the market economy in Ireland was good at creating wealth, it was not good at distributing the wealth fairly. "To achieve this we need a new awareness of, and a new commitment to, solidarity across all sectors of Irish society," he said.
The ESRI report warns against a return to the short term pay bargaining attitudes of the 1970s. A long-term perspective needed to be adopted by all the social partners to safeguard progress.
The report stresses the need for consensus on socio-economic policy due to rising pressures on infrastructure, particularly housing and transport, as a result of the State's economic success.
Mr Richard Burrows, president of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, said the report was "a constructive and useful piece of input into the discussions on new partnership agreements". But he said the idea of profit-sharing and shared ownership was "something of a panacea given the fact that it is not applicable everywhere".
The report is critical of State training agency, FAS. Economist Mr Terry Baker, one of the report's authors, described moves by State agencies to attract people living overseas to fill jobs in Ireland as a "gross misuse" of taxpayers' money.
