THE GOVERNMENT is prepared to use social welfare funding to pay for a new initiative on job protection and creation, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has told union leaders.
In a letter to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions yesterday, Mr Cowen also signalled that the Government was willing to look at new measures to support private sector pension schemes facing difficulties.
Ictu yesterday said that on the basis of the Taoiseach’s letter it was prepared to go back into talks on a national recovery deal subject to it receiving assurances that the Government would deal with the issue of pensions protection for workers.
Ictu general secretary David Begg said pensions protection in companies like SR Technics could become a deal breaker in talks on a national recovery deal.
He said Ictu could not accept an agreement that would provide pension protection to some workers but not to others.
Mr Begg suggested that if new talks on a national recovery deal did go ahead they should not extend beyond next week.
He said the unions’ proposals for a job protection initiative ‘‘seems to be finding some resonance on the Government side’’.
However Mr Begg expressed concern that the Government appeared to be suggesting that this scheme – for which the unions had sought a €1 billion State investment – would be funded by a reallocation of existing resources from the social welfare budget.
‘‘Our feeling is that we do not want the ambition associated with a scheme like this limited solely to that amount of funding,’’ he said.
Mr Begg said money from the capital programme could also be used to pump prime the new scheme.
In his letter the Taoiseach said the Government believed that ‘‘we need to be imaginative and to break new ground in intervening to sustain jobs’’.
‘‘The Government intend to put in place new approaches to intervening and to apply resources which would otherwise be required for social welfare payments to interventions that are worthwhile, targeted and effective and which address the constraints which inevitably arise in order to ensure effectiveness and to meet the relevant regulatory require- ments’’, Mr Cowen said.
On pensions, the Taoiseach said the Government was willing to explore a range of options that could provide enhanced protection for pensioners as well as for active and deferred members.
He said that cases where the pension scheme was insolvent but the liquidation of the company was voluntary raised “a much wider range of issues and concerns.
Meanwhile the social campaigning group Cori Justice said yesterday that a ‘‘lop-sided social partnership deal on national recovery’’ would not be acceptable to the community.