Union says plan is savage, regressive and will cause deep recession

REACTION:THE IRISH Congress of Trade Unions has described the Government's four-year plan as "savage and regressive". It said that trade unions would mount a strong campaign of opposition to the measures announced yesterday.

Congress general secretary David Begg said that the National Recovery Plan would “do precisely the opposite of what it is supposed to do”.

He said that it would not lead to national recovery but rather it was “a roadmap into deep recession”.

“The proposed cuts are savage and will simply dampen down consumer demand further – which makes up 70 per cent of our economy.

“Quite simply, they are penalising the poorest and the lowest paid and making them pay for the reckless behaviour of others,” he said.

“The economy is already very fragile and some €14 billion has already been extracted. Taking out another €15 billion will likely push us over the edge. The projections for growth contained in this plan are a fiction and bordering on the delusional,” Mr Begg said.

He said that there was nothing in the plan to encourage job creation.

Siptu, the country’s largest union, said that the plan represented an intensification of the failed economic policies of the past two years.

Siptu president Jack O’Connor said: “Subject to more careful scrutiny of the document and clarification of a number of matters, this four-year National Recovery Plan is an intensification of policies that have failed abysmally over the past two years.

“The most glaring deficiency is the absence of any plan for public investment which is paralleled by an unsubstantiated expectation of dramatic growth on the private side.

“Job creation and growth are the keys to recovery and these cannot be achieved without investment,” he said.

Impact general secretary Shay Cody said the decisions to cut the minimum wage and further reduce pay for new public service entrants represented additional attacks on low-income families.

“The cut in the minimum wage, coupled with an additional tax burden, will impoverish thousands while pay for new public servants will now be almost 25 per cent lower than it was less than two years ago.”

Unite condemned the plan as “an attack on the most vulnerable”. The union’s Irish regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said: “The cutting of the minimum wage, and introduction of a flat rate property charge, even if only on an interim basis, reveals a callous disregard for those who earn the least and are most vulnerable to reductions of income.”

The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union said that it was prepared to pursue a campaign of civil disobedience to oppose the four-year plan.