Speech by the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Towards 2016 plenary session in Dublin Castle today.
Introductory Remarks
The Tánaiste and I are present here this morning to mark the beginning of a significant phase in the implementation of our Ten-Year Framework Social Partnership Agreement, Towards 2016. As you know, that Agreement provides for a formal review to be undertaken in 2008. This is set out in the Agreement as being to "provide an opportunity to take stock of outcomes achieved in relation to the overall goals and to consider any opportunities arising to re-focus and re-prioritise".
At the outset, I want to re-affirm my commitment and that of the Government to the honouring of our responsibilities under Towards 2016. There has been some public discussion as to whether social partnership has lost its way, or had its day. Of course, like any social process, it must continue to justify its existence by what it achieves for those who make it happen, and for the wider community it exists to serve. We all will make that judgement in our own way.
For me, I remain as convinced as I was in 1987 that this way of doing business is better than old, confrontational ways of working, that it enhances democracy by enabling Government to lead a broader civic process, and that it delivers results in the fast-moving global environment.
I have never been under any illusion that social partnership works because of a consensus among the partners. On the contrary, it is precisely because there are differences around the table that it is possible to negotiate and implement policies and actions which provide sufficient benefit for each of the stakeholders, for them to judge it better than the likely alternative. Sound analysis, clear-headed judgement and a commitment to fair dealing are therefore the foundations for social partnership, not some woolly consensus.
There is, however, a clear need for some shared vision to inspire all of us to make the effort required to produce agreement. And it is the shared goal set out in Towards 2016 with which I want to begin this morning. It is achieving the Vision for Ireland set out by the NESC: that "is a dynamic, internationalised and participatory society and economy, founded on a commitment to social justice, with economic development that is both environmentally sustainable and internationally competitive". We all recognised that the achievement of this goal would require a longer-term framework and the development, in particular, of a new social policy perspective. Hence, the Ten-Year Framework Agreement.
We also agreed that achieving this vision would require a number of strategic steps. Firstly, we need to recognise and deepen the complementary relationship between social policy and economic prosperity. We must develop a vibrant knowledge-based economy, which stimulates enterprise and productivity. We must re-invent and re-position our social policies for the Ireland of today and tomorrow. We must support the integration of an island-of-Ireland economy. And we must deepen our capability to achieve higher social and economic participation rates, especially by the successful handling of greater diversity as a result of immigration.
In pursuing that strategy, we recognised that the economic background would be very important. We noted, for example that the ESRI had predicted GNP growth of between 3.5 per cent and 4.9 per cent over the period to 2010. In the event, the current outlook is below that range and that reflects a number of significant risks, domestically and internationally, which we explicitly acknowledged when Towards 2016 was negotiated. For example, we noted that the housing market was vulnerable to a downturn and that a sharp depreciation of the dollar could have significant negative effects.
The Tánaiste will give us his assessment of precisely how things look from an economic and fiscal point of view. We had clearly stated in Towards 2016, as in previous Agreements, that if economic growth fell below the projected levels, it would be necessary to re-prioritise or make more gradual progress, in order to achieve our goals. Any such adjustments would, we asserted, emphasise the need to protect the most vulnerable people.
In all of that, our goal should be to mitigate the economic risks which we face and to strengthen the competitiveness and productive capacity of the economy. The Government, for its part, has shaped its strategic policy contained in our Programme for Government, and in our budgetary policy outlined by the Tánaiste last December, within that framework and within, more specifically, the shared approach to macro-economic policy, fiscal policy, investment in infrastructure, taxation policy and public expenditure principles set out in Towards 2016.
Despite the many pressures and uncertainties, we have made significant progress towards achieving the broad objectives, and the particular commitments, under Towards 2016. For example, in Towards 2016 we adopted the lifecycle framework as the best means of meeting the needs of people at each stage of their lives. An important step forward has been the creation of two new cross-departmental offices to implement this approach:
the Office for Older People will bring together relevant policies through development of a National Strategy on Positive Ageing, and the Office for Disability and Mental Health will oversee the continued implementation of the National Disability Strategy.
These Offices are modelled to some extent on the Office of the Minister for Children, where we have made good progress in integrating policy and services for children and young people.
We have also been making solid progress on specific commitments in the Agreement. For example:
in the last two budgets we have increased basic social welfare rates by €32 and pensions by €30 per week;
we have significantly increased investment in education, including additional language support teachers and expanded adult literacy services;
and we have invested an extra €540 million in services for Older People, including a major expansion of community-based supports and home care packages.
Significant progress has also been achieved on workplace issues. For example:
The Protection of Employment (Exceptional Collective Redundancies) Act was signed into law by the President in May 2007;
The National Minimum Wage was increased to €8.65 per hour from the 1st July 2007;
5 new Rights Commissioners have been appointed;
20 additional posts have been provided for the industrial relations bodies;
A Workplace Innovation Fund worth €9 million has been established;
A new Code of Practice for Protecting Persons Employed in Other Peoples Homes was launched;
and a National Skills Strategy has been devised and is being implemented.
Pensions
The launch of the Green Paper on Pensions initiated an important dialogue on pensions and delivered on a key commitment made in Towards 2016. This was an issue that featured prominently in the negotiations leading up to that Agreement, and I know that it remains an issue of particular concern to many. I would like to acknowledge the particularly valuable role that the ICTU played in leading the drive for an inclusive, open dialogue on this issue.
The Green Paper provides that sound basis for the development of a framework to comprehensively address the pensions agenda.
Infrastructure
We have made further progress on upgrading our infrastructure through the NDP, which was launched in January 2007. For example:
good progress has been made on planning for Metro North and roll-out of LUAS extensions;
the major inter-urban routes are on schedule for completion by 2010
and €1.7billion was provided in Budget 2008 for delivery of the housing commitments in Towards 2016. This will support the delivery of 9,000 new social housing units to be commenced or acquired in 2008 and the provision of 5,500 new affordable homes.
Employment Rights and Compliance
While we all appreciate the imperative to price and position ourselves competitively in the challenging global marketplace, we do not want to see people building competitive advantage based on poor wages, casual labour, low health and safety standards or other poor compliance practices.
The issue of compliance was to the fore during the negotiations on Towards 2016. The importance that all social partners accord to this issue is reflected in the commitments contained in the Agreement, including those involving comprehensive legislative provisions.
A significant number of these commitments have been delivered. For example, the National Employment Rights Agency (NERA) has been up and running on an interim basis since February of last year. An additional 59 Labour Inspectors have been assigned bringing the total number to 90 and NERA's legal and technical experts are also in place. NERA's powers are extensive and they are already being put to good use - NERA carried out in excess of 14,200 inspections in 2007 and the amount of arrears recovered on behalf of employees increased to almost €2.5 million.
The Employment Law Compliance Bill which will, among other things, place NERA on a statutory footing will be published later this month by my colleague, Mícheál Martin, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Minister Martin is also currently finalising the Bill to regulate employment agencies - a key commitment in Towards 2016 and an issue which I appreciate is of great concern to Congress. This, and other elements of our commitments on the employment protection and workplace agenda, will be in place over the coming weeks.
Scope of the Review
The review, which I am initiating here this morning, provides us with an opportunity to review the progress that has been made to date and to hear your views.
I would like, formally, to invite you to participate in the review in the first instance by preparing your own assessment of the progress which we have made to date, and the issues which arise for you from that assessment. The issues on which progress had been expected by this time are likely to constitute the first phase of our work, and I suggest that these assessments should be provided to my Department by mid-March. We can then proceed to discuss the issues which you wish to prioritise for the period ahead, while we remain focussed on the long-term goals that we signed up to when this agreement was adopted.
There are new challenges emerging too, that we will need to consider, not least in the area of climate change, where the European Commission has proposed greenhouse gas and renewable energy targets with profound economic and social implications.
In all of these discussions, the Government's position will be put forward in the context of our own Programme. As on previous occasions, my Department will convene the Steering Group in due course to agree more detailed arrangements for the conduct of the Review.
Concluding Remarks
I look forward to the dialogue ahead and to the progress we will make together. I encourage you to fully engage in this review and to contribute wholeheartedly to the process so that we can continue to act to implement our joint commitment to the Towards 2016 agreement.