The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) welcomes the opportunity to set out our views on the Draft Agri-Food Strategy to 2030, as presented by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM)’s public consultation.
ICTU is the representative confederation of 43 trade unions in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. These unions have a total membership of over 700,000, more than 500,000 in the Republic of Ireland and 200,000 in Northern Ireland, working in every sector of the economy. This makes ICTU one of the largest if not the largest and one of the most representative civil society organisations on the island of Ireland. Our core mission is to ‘strive to achieve economic development, social cohesion and justice by upholding the values of solidarity, fairness and equality’.
ICTU is also affiliated to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). This represents trade unions confederations in all European Union (EU) member states and cross the wider Europe. Through the ETUC we engage with the EU institutions, particularly the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council on EU matters.
Our affiliated unions represent tens of thousands of agri-food workers, and seek to engage with employers, Government and other relevant stakeholders across the entire agri-food sector on matters affecting their members.
This response therefore focuses on what we see as the main issues that are not addressed or inadequately addressed in the draft strategy as well as the main concerns and criticisms that we would have with the draft strategy.
