The general secretary of ICTU, Mr Peter Cassells, has called on the Government to establish a hotline for consumers to report excessive price increases to the Director of Consumer Affairs.
Mr Cassells, who was speaking at the general review of Partnership 2000, proposed the freephone service as an immediate measure which could help curb inflation.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, accepted there was a need to begin monitoring prices, although he ruled out any return to price controls, at least in the short term.
Inflation was a concern of all the social partners at yesterday's meeting, although they disagreed on the causes. While employers and farming organisations expressed concern at the impact of public service pay demands, Mr Cassells disagreed.
"From the complaints that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has received in recent weeks, there is growing evidence of totally unwarranted price hikes across a range of services and products," he said. He called on the Government to establish "a special prices hotline in the Office of Consumer Affairs to monitor price increases and to intervene where prices are excessive."
Ireland's economic success "should not blind us to the fragile nature of our present economic achievements", he added. "Managing our current success is a bigger challenge for government, employers and unions than the challenge we faced 10 years ago of rescuing the economy from collapse."
Mr Cassells said the two dangers threatening social partnership were inflation and disillusionment among some workers that they were "not getting their fair share of the benefits of our booming economy". Inflation, "sparked by unnecessary price increases and fuelled by a December budget which gave concessions to all sectors, could lead to a return to the vicious circle of high wage demands chasing high inflation rates".
On the Budget, Mr Cassells said it must not add to inflation, "but it must reduce the tax burden on low-paid and middle-income earners. To achieve these two objectives the Government will have to reject demands for tax concessions for business people and those on high incomes."
The Government should "announce now that the top 20 per cent" on high incomes "will not get any concession in this year's budget". By excluding them, it would be able to increase social investment in health, education and welfare. "Whole communities and thousands of families who are caught in the poverty trap look to the Budget as a means of accessing some of the benefits of an economic boom from which they are otherwise excluded."
Mr Cassells also called for more profit-sharing arrangements in the private sector and the commercial semi-state companies. This would allow employees to enjoy some of the unusually high profits companies were now making.
"The option of profit-sharing is not available for workers in the public service. Public servants are, however, entitled to their fair share of the benefits of the economic growth to which they have contributed." While they could expect to benefit from tax cuts in the Budget, "public servants are also entitled to be rewarded for adapting to major changes and for helping to modernise the public service, improving its quality and accessibility.
"Congress is recommending that new methods of pay rewards for public servants, which will not automatically result in knock-on claims, should be developed between the Government and public service unions as a matter of urgency."