Commenting on the outcome of the UK "Brexit" referendum, Congress General Secretary Patricia King said:
"From the outset it was clear that the Remain side could not win without massive support from working people across the UK. But for much of the last decade the main thrust of EU policy has been to lower living standards, depress wages and create ever more insecurity at work.
"Working people across Europe bore the brunt of adjustment to the 2008 crisis, a crisis that was manufactured in the boardrooms of high finance.
'social Europe was sacrificed to save Financial Europe and it is clear that many in the UK simply lost faith in the European Project.
"We are not being wise after the event: the trade union movement in Ireland, the UK and Europe argued since 2009 for a change of policy direction.
'this vote has major consequences for working people across Ireland but Congress is clear that they cannot be made pay the price for this," Ms King said.
Also commenting on the result, Assistant General Secretary Peter Bunting of the ICTU Northern Ireland Committee, said:
'the only thing we can be sure of now is uncertainty, and that usually means economic volatility and shocks.
'the politicians who led the Leave campaign, and their business backers, must now be held to account and made to honour their undertakings to increase spending on the NHS and other public services, and to prevent any trade deal with the US along the lines of TTIP, with its Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions which privilege the rights of Corporations over citizens," he said.
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