Congress Welcomes Fine Gael 'Adoption' of Union Plan
27 Mar 2009
Congress has welcomed the 'adoption' by Fine Gael of a 2005 union proposal designed to maximise the economic potential of the semi-state sector and create new jobs.
According to Congress Economic Advisor, the Fine Gael scheme unveiled yesterday "bears a remarkable resemblance to a plan we ourselves drew up in 2005. But on the basis that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery we are happy to see Fine Gael sign up to our idea and that they are sufficiently open-minded to look beyond their normal sources for good creative ideas."
In a series of proposals published on Thursday (March 27) Fine Gael called for the establishment of NewERA, a new state body designed to coordinate investment and planning on the part of the semi-state sector.
However, precisely the same proposal was submitted to government by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in Summer 2005 under the banner of A New Governance Structure for State Companies and was also mentioned in recent submissions to government on dealing with the economic crisis (see below).
The Congress document laid out in great detail how the effective ownership of the existing semi-states would be vested in a State Holding Company, in order to allow access to capital and greater investment. The State Holding Company would itself be legally-owned within the National Treasury Management Agency.
"The aim of the original proposal was to free the sector from financial and political micro-management and allow some very successful companies to realise a greater commercial potential, for the benefit of the taxpayer," said Mr Sweeney.
"And we restated the idea in a recent submission to government, on tackling the economic crisis. Government may not have been paying attention, but thankfully someone was," Mr Sweeney added.
The original document from Congress in 2005 stated that: "Congress proposes that the shareholding of each of the commercial state companies be transferred from the Department of Finance to a new holding company with its own board and with its role set out clearly by statute. The holding company would be legally owned by a new board of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA5), State Holding Company Investment Board (SHCIB), with economic ownership held for the benefit of the nation."
The full, original document can be accessed at the following link:
http://www.ictu.ie/download/pdf/governanceof_state_companies.pdf
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Irish Congress of Trade Unions,
32 Parnell Square, Dublin 1.
Tel: (01) 889 7799; m 087 9174171