Begg Tells Taoiseach: 'Reform is Not Just for the Little People'
4 Jul 2011
Congress General Secretary David Begg has told Taoiseach Enda Kenny that the official response to the economic crisis to date has ignored the financial systems that caused the meltdown and has focussed instead on cutting incomes for low earners.
Delivering the official response to a speech by the Taoiseach, to BDC 2011, Mr Begg said it seemed "that reform is for the little people...and is not for the powerful."
The Taoiseach was addressing some 800 delegates, observers and guests at the Congress Biennial Delegate 2011 at the INEC, in Killarney.
Mr Begg said that the European Social Model at the heart of the European project was being "torn asunder" by the same neoliberals whose deregulation of Europe's financial system had led to the current crisis.
He condemned the attempt by the bailout troika to make an "Ireland into economic laboratory in which they can pursue the neoliberal experiment."
He said it was an experiment driven entirely by ideology.
Thus far, the official response across Europe had been to penalise working people by trying to cut wages and whittle away protections that had been built up over years.
Mr Begg said this focus was illustrated in the controversy over proposed 'reforms' of the Joint Labour Committees (JLCs).
He deplored the fact that those pushing the 'reform agenda' had utterly failed to bring forward any evidence to support their case and in fact, as the Duffy/ Walsh report made clear, the weight of evidence was entirely "on the other side."
In place of evidence, opportunistic employers were substituting anecdotes to support their case. Mr Begg warned that it would be "very dangerous" for Government to proceed to make policy in relation to the JLCs based on "anecdotes and scare stories."
Mr Begg said working people were seeing all the security they had built up over the years being eroded, in terms of pensions, old age security and educating their children.
In relation to Northern Ireland, he requested the Taoiseach use his influence with the UK government to stop planned budget cuts, saying that "this was not the time to cut and was too dangerous."
He concluded by telling the Taoiseach that the austerity programme was not working and that some form of stimulus was needed in the economy.
Earlier, the Taoiseach had praised the work of Congress in Northern Ireland, over recent decades and said he planned further meetings with Congress in the context of building "a good dialogue" with unions.