Address by the Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen T.D., to the ICTU Biennial Conference, Tralee

10 Jul 2009

Tá áthas orm a bheith anseo ar maidin chun labhairt libh don chéad uair mar Thaoiseach agus sibh bailithe le chéile anseo i dTrá Lí do bhur gComhdháil. Faraor gan muid ag castáil lena chéile faoi imthosca eile, agus dúshláin eile á phlé againn agus dearcadh difriúil againn ar an tréimhse amach romhainn.
Is tréimhse chasta agus dúshlánach í seo agus táim ag súil le bheith ag obair le ceannaireacht na Comhdhála agus muid ag iarraidh aghaidh a thabhairt, trí Chomhpháirtíocht Shóisialta, ar na saincheisteanna crua atá os ár gcomhair sa tréimhse atá díreach amach romhainn.
Ladies & Gentlemen
I am happy to be here this morning to address you for the first time as Taoiseach as you gather here in Tralee for your Conference. As many of you know, I have a great respect for and belief in the Trade Union movement in Ireland and am proud of the long and respectful relationship I have had with you since becoming a politician 25 years ago.
Today, as we all know, we are meeting in challenging times. Our economy is under threat from some of the most seismic events in our living history. We have been hit by a unique combination of national and international factors that will require all our focus, determination and continued co-operation if we are to pull through this as a people and as a Republic.
The tragedy of this recession is not that some of us have to do with less. The real tragedy
- is that so many of us have lost the opportunity to contribute to society through meaningful work,
- it is the despair and genuine hardship that this uncertainty brings, and
- it is the lack of hope in so many of our citizens that jobs and prosperity will return.
This is a time for all of us in this room to lead. A time to provide assurance, direction and courage. We have a duty to our fellow citizens to do all that is humanly possible to demonstrate solidarity with their plight and do what is needed to turn the corner back to sustainable growth and prosperity.
My message to you this morning is that I believe passionately that there is a way through this crisis, that can bring not just economic recovery, but a sustainable basis for jobs and prosperity for our people. I believe that this way forward requires clarity about the nature of the challenges we face, focus on the steps that need to be taken to build recovery, fairness in the way we go about implementing the necessary action, and consistency in the way we go about our business.
The Government has set out a vision for economic recovery. Our goal is to develop a critical mass of companies - both Irish and international - at the forefront of innovation, creating the products and services of tomorrow and providing well paid jobs for this and future generations. We want to work with all stakeholders to deliver this vision of a high productivity, environmentally-sustainable 'Smart Economy.
There has been a lot of comment recently on the reasons we are where we are. I do not intend to revisit that debate here today. However, as I have already stated publicly, I fully accept my own responsibility for decisions which I took, and the decisions of the Government of which I was part, over the past number of years.
These decisions were taken in good faith, in the light of the best analysis and advice available, and were clearly steering the economy in a direction which, as the NESC pointed out, could reasonably be seen as appropriate.
One thing however is clear from our recent history. This country proved that it can compete with the best in the world. Our dramatic leap from poverty to prosperity was not a mirage and it was not all based on imaginary wealth.
Our real success was based on producing goods and services which were in demand internationally, because of a combination of quality, price and reliability, and were produced through a winning combination of overseas investment, indigenous enterprise, a growing skill base and a high level of employment. The rapid rise in the labour force participation of both men and women, of all ages, was a critical ingredient in our strong performance in converging with, and then surpassing standards of living across the EU. That was sustainable insofar as our costs, including labour costs, were competitive. This model generated a surplus to be applied to developing our physical and social infrastructure, and protecting social services for those who need them.

That simple lesson, which is the commonsense experience of men and women throughout this country, must guide us in the direction of recovery and renewal.
At the core of that recovery and renewal is the issue of jobs - both the protection of as many existing jobs as possible, and the creation of new ones. But we know from the practical experience of recent years that the jobs growth we now require will come only when the necessary conditions are met.
Supporting jobs has therefore been at the very heart of the Government's approach. Unless we have a functioning banking system, that can lend to businesses and households, economic activity will stagnate. Unless banks, in turn, are seen as viable, they will be unable to attract and retain the capital and deposits which make banking and financial activity possible.
It is for that reason, and that reason alone, that the Government have taken the necessary steps to secure the continued operation of our banking system. This is why we guaranteed deposits and bond holders. This is why we recapitalised the banks and in one extreme case, nationalised a bank. And this is why we are creating a vehicle to remove bad assets from the banks and enable them once again to support job creating activity and investment in the economy.
In all of this, we have taken great care to protect the interests of the taxpayer, both by minimising expenditure and by protecting the value of the investments we have made, both now and for the longer term.
For the same reason, we have committed ourselves to a demanding pathway to restoring fiscal stability. These measures have proven difficult and painful. There is more pain ahead. There is no possibility of attracting the confidence of investors and lenders, whose support is critical if our economy is to survive and recover, without confidence that we as a State can meet our obligations and restore the public finances to a sustainable base.
We have done this in a way which reflects the principles which we agreed with Congress and the other social partners last January. In particular, we have sought to protect the most vulnerable and to ensure that the burden of adjustment is allocated in accordance with the capacity to bear it. All independent analysis shows that the measures which we have announced meet this standard: we have, for example, substantially increased the revenue being raised from those on higher incomes. These are principles which we will continue to apply as we implement the necessary adjustments over the next two years.
Despite the difficult adjustments which have been made already, we are continuing to operate at record levels of deficit - the gap between income and expenditure. By any definition, this is an expansionary fiscal approach. It includes funding for about 5% of GNP devoted to investment in infrastructure. This not only builds our economic and social capacity for the future, but provides a stimulus to economic activity and to jobs.
And we have other measures to protect jobs and help those who lost them.
We have introduced an Enterprise Stabilisation Fund of €100m to support vulnerable but viable companies. This will help sustain jobs in companies affected by recession-hit overseas markets.
Drawing on detailed discussions with Congress, we are introducing a new initiative to safeguard vulnerable jobs through a Temporary Employment Subsidy Scheme. This will provide a subsidy to support jobs in exporting companies in the manufacturing or internationally-traded services sector.
This new Scheme is in addition to the significant support that the State already provides to people on short-time work. At present, over 50,000 more workers are receiving social welfare payments in respect of short-time working than was the case 12 months ago. We are currently spending an additional €540million to support workers in these situations when compared to last year. This is the equivalent of, or in many case greater than, the support offered in other EU Member States.
The Government has also introduced a wide range of measures to help those who become unemployed. A total of 128,000 training and work experience activation places will now be funded through FÁS in 2009 while provision has been made for 146,000 participants in further education programmes.
The Congress has asked if the Government would be willing to allocate €1billion to show an appropriate level of commitment to addressing the jobs crisis. The fact is that we have already committed an additional €1billion to the jobs agenda through the measures I have outlined.
I have already made it clear, and I confirm here this morning, that the Government are committed to applying further resources to the jobs agenda - by reallocating resources from other, less urgent spending - where we can be confident that they will be effective in addressing the problem.
We are also seriously engaged in discussion with the Congress on ways of enhancing the impact of our measures to support jobs, especially through support for short-time working and the enhancement of skills and productivity.
There should be no doubting the scale and depth of my commitment and that of the Government to the jobs crisis. But this is a challenge for more than the Government: if we are all truly committed to jobs, then our actions and our decisions must reflect the consequences. When we have done so, together, we have produced remarkable outcomes in terms of employment and living standards. The much-criticised social partnership model is precisely about operating in such a way as to incorporate the consequences into the decisions we make about how we will behave.
Those who are far removed from the process often fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the social partnership engagement. It is not about a consensus which is created and sustained in Government Buildings in denial of the real world. Neither is it a selfless search for the common good without reference to the underlying conflicts and divergence of interest between the parties - although I do believe that the search for the common good is a powerful influence in the process. In reality, social partnership is about structuring the engagement which takes place anyway between the social partners, and between the social partners and the Government, so that each can take better-informed decisions about how their interests are best advanced.
For the trade union movement, I accept fully that growing and preserving jobs is as much a priority as improving the income levels of those at work. I know that you also have strong views about how a just and fair society should be organised, and the needs of ordinary men and women addressed, through public provision, often described as the social wage.
Over many successful Agreements, you have made the judgement, ratified by your members, that the outcome of the social partnership engagement was a better outcome than the most likely alternative in pursuing your objectives. The same must be true today if the social partnership process as we have known it is to continue.
Above all, if it is truly the case that we share a commitment to the jobs agenda, then how we behave in the world of industrial relations across the board must reflect that over-riding priority. That is as true of engagement at the level of the individual enterprise as it is of national level negotiations in Merrion Street.
It is also relevant to how we organise ourselves to deal with disagreement and dispute. There is frankly no greater penalty that we can impose on ourselves than to revert to the failed models of industrial conflict at a time when we require to apply all our energies to positive innovation and creative change in order to preserve jobs and living standards. The current dispute in the electrical contracting sector reflects little credit on either side. The industrial relations machinery of the State, at the request of the National Implementation Body, has been engaged with the parties in an attempt to bring about a solution.
There is an onus on both sides to engage constructively in that process and to reflect in their behaviour the reality of the impact the dispute is having on the wider economy and its reputation.
I hope that the social partnership process at national level will continue, because I believe it is the intelligent way to do our business. Over the course of recent engagements we have addressed together, not only the urgent question of support for jobs and the unemployed, but other matters of major concern to your members.
These include the legitimate anxieties of those who become unemployed and fear the loss of their home if they are unable to maintain repayments. We have given assurance of our commitment in this area in respect of those who make and honour arrangements to reschedule those payments.
We have also taken very significant steps to address the problems with members of insolvent pension schemes operated by an insolvent company. Together with other regulatory changes, these provide a very substantial improvement in the protections available to pensioners and the active and deferred members of pension schemes. The decisions which we announced recently with regard to a new Pension Income Maintenance Scheme have, I know, been examined by the Congress and certain issues have been identified by you for further consideration. These are receiving careful and sympathetic consideration at this time.
We have also confirmed our commitment to finalising a comprehensive new National Pensions Framework, which will be published later this year.
Employment Rights
I want to emphasise the Government's strong commitment to policies and measures which protect employment standards and appropriate compliance, on the basis that we have developed with the social partners.
As further clear evidence of this commitment and of ongoing delivery with the Towards 2016 framework, I am happy to announce that the Government has published today the Employment Agency Regulation Bill, 2009 which addresses a significant legislative commitment under Towards 2016.
This Bill will modernise the legislative provisions in this area, providing an appropriate regulatory framework for the sector with effective redress mechanisms.
I should also mention in this context that is intended to amend the published Bill to provide for a legal prohibition on the use of agency workers in strike situations and lockouts.
As you know, we have recently promised the publication of further legislation by the end of July.
Public Service Reform
It is in that same spirit of positive engagement through partnership that I want to raise important issues about the future of our public service.
We need a public service which carries the confidence of the wider society as regards its competence, efficiency and value for money.

Expenditure is quite clearly constrained so we have to go about improving public services through radical change - by doing more with less. I believe that the vast majority of public servants want to make a contribution to improving the quality and efficiency of our public services. They want to play their part in our national recovery.
Many people are more dependent than ever on public services which need to be easy to access, efficient and equitable. We must ask ourselves if those in most need, such as people who have lost their jobs and are seeking benefits, would endorse our current arrangements to deliver public services? These are questions for managers and unions across the public service.
We have to re-organise how the whole business of government is conducted and how services are delivered. This is the reason that the Government published the Transforming Public Services (TPS) programme last November. The TPS programme is about getting different parts of the Public Service working better together, and about efficiency and effectiveness in our Public Service. It is designed to secure maximum value for public spending. It is about offering the best service possible to citizens, greater use of technology to deliver services to the public, and the development of shared services on a wide scale.
It is quite clear that we cannot proceed with a business as usual response to the current challenges facing the Public Service.
The Public Service unions are necessarily part of designing and delivering this response - it is a challenge that we must face together. It is only through such transformation and change, and the delivery of services valued by the public, that the best interests of public servants can be secured.
In the context of our recent discussions on a recovery strategy, I have stressed the need for flexibility, redeployment of resources to priority areas, mobility across organisational boundaries and best practice - and for an approach to change which is facilitated on a timely basis in the context of an agreed, time-bound approach to the industrial relations issues which arise.
We need to work more imaginatively and build services which are manifestly based on the needs of citizens, rather than on the needs of service providers. This is as much a leadership and management challenge, as a question of industrial relations.
Important dialogue on transformation, modernisation and flexibility has been ongoing at sectoral level. In our recent position paper, the Government proposed further, urgent engagement with you to take this agenda forward. Difficult budgetary decisions will have to be taken later this year. The report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes will contribute to that process. I am anxious that the Government's decisions should also be informed by the outcome of these negotiations on the future of the public service.
More efficient public services are in all our interests - Government, trade unions and the citizen. This unprecedented crisis calls for an unprecedented and imaginative response from us all. I would ask that you reflect on the need for change in that context.
Europe/Lisbon Treaty
I want to speak for a few moments about Ireland's role in Europe. I want to set out at the very beginning again the Government's unequivocal view that the Lisbon Treaty is good for workers, and that the entry into force of the Charter for Fundamental Rights will be positive for workers' rights. The Charter contains a number of principles relating to workers, which will be given full Treaty status for the first time, if Lisbon enters into force.
At the European Council last month and in response to Irish pressure, our European partners adopted a Solemn Declaration on the importance the EU attaches to workers' rights. That declaration sets out in a single, simple text the importance the European Union attaches to a Social Europe -- and makes clear that growth and competition are not ends in themselves.
It is important we look to the sum of the parts in our assessment of Europe, and our assessment of the Lisbon Treaty.

Much of the social progress in Ireland in recent decades has been either required, or more often inspired, by our membership of the European Union. I speak of equal pay, and equal treatment for part-time workers. I speak of limits on working hours.
I speak of maternity pay, and parental leave where there may be more to come. I speak of advances in health and safety. I speak of protections against exploitation of migrant workers. I speak of progress in relation to employees' information and consultation, to rights when undertakings are transferred.
I think it is fairly obvious that if Social Europe is to survive as a source of progressive change, then it depends on a Union which functions well, which is fit for purpose. It is difficult to see how a weakened Europe might stay the hand of those who, in the fears of some, might wish to race to the bottom.
I wish also to recall the horizontal social clause in the Treaty which states for the first time that ... "In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union shall take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employment, the guarantee of adequate social protection, the fight against social exclusion, and a high level of education, training and protection of human health."
In speaking of Europe, I do not want to focus solely on workers' legal rights. Because a major benefit of Europe to Ireland and to Irish workers is jobs. Right now, that is the most important issue facing us here today.
60% of our exports go to other countries in the European Union. Our membership and clear commitment to our future in Europe play an important role in attracting Foreign Direct Investment to this country.
Difficult as our current economic challenges may be, the euro has prevented the current crisis in Ireland being far worse. We only have to look at other small nations where the knock-on economic hardship and fall in living standards are worse.
Our nation now faces a fundamental decision - whether to be relevant at Europe's heart or whether to risk being seen to be on the margins. I am calling on the Trade Union movement, as it has done historically, to accept the responsibility of leadership, to actively support a Europe that is in your long term interests.
I accept that Europe, and the Lisbon Treaty, may not be perfect. But that cannot be a credible reason to reject it, or to oppose the significant improvements, for workers in particular, that it nonetheless brings forward.
We need to pass the Lisbon Treaty because it is good for Ireland, because it is good for Europe, because it is good for workers' rights; But most of all, because it is good for jobs.
Northern Ireland
Turning to Northern Ireland, President, I want to commend Congress and your Northern Ireland Committee for being so visible and vocal in your desire to fully eliminate violence, sectarianism and racism.
Last March, in the days that followed the terrible murders of the two British soldiers in Antrim and a PSNI officer in Craigavon, you organised a street protest in Belfast which resonated widely at home and abroad. You have also recently spoken out against the sectarian murder of Kevin McDaid in Coleraine and rallied for political action to challenge racism. It is deeply regrettable that we are still witnessing such acts of violence and thuggery.
More than a decade on from the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland must now move closer to achieving the genuinely shared future for which many people have taken risks over the past decades. I have no doubt that Congress will continue to play its part in working towards this goal.
Active participants across civil society, North and South, are an integral part of building an enduring future for this island. I am pleased to announce that in the autumn the Government intends to facilitate a conference involving social partners and voluntary groups, both North and South with an interest in promoting further cooperation. I look forward to the contribution that Congress will make to this new process.
As the largest all-island organisation, you have engaged proactively with the First and Deputy First Minister on the current economic difficulties as well as on building up the linkages North and South. On Monday I welcomed Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness and members of their Ministerial Executive team to Farmleigh.
This was the second meeting this year of the North South Ministerial Council, in addition to meeting regularly in sectoral format. Real engagement and partnership are taking place with the Northern Executive and I remain committed to implementing the ambitious North/South agenda.
Concluding Remarks
In acknowledging the important contribution that Congress continues to make right across the spectrum in Northern Ireland, it is only fitting that I acknowledge the work of your outgoing President Ms. Patricia McKeown. Patricia has been a strong voice for the trade union movement over many years now and has, in particular, championed women's rights and the wider equality agenda.
I would like to commend her on her term as President and wish her well for the future.
I would also like to congratulate Mr. Jack O'Connor on being elected President. I have no doubt that Jack will be a very effective President and I wish him every success in his new role.
These are, as we well know, complex and challenging times, and I look forward to working with Jack, General Secretary David Begg and the Congress leadership as we seek to address, through Social Partnership, the many difficult issues confronting us in the immediate period ahead.
Le gach dea-ghui.