In its pomp, old-style social partnership saw groups such as trade unions, employers, farmers and social justice campaigners enjoy huge influence on official policy over whole swathes of the economy including pay, taxation, healthcare, housing, infrastructure, etc.
The various parties met the Government in private and an overall agreement was hammered out about which there was very little debate in the Oireachtas subsequently.
Earlier this year previously confidential Government papers were released dating from September 2008 – the time of the final social partnership deal – which showed how its contents were merely noted by cabinet members.
While a number of the faces at the opening of the Government’s new national economic dialogue today will be familiar from social partnership days, the process will be very different. This is not a return to social partnership as it was previously known.
For a start, proceedings will be, in part, held in public. Plenary sessions will be streamed live although eight breakout meetings to be chaired by various Ministers will be held in camera.
Reports from these breakout sessions will feed back into a later plenary hearing.
The most striking difference, perhaps, is that the aim of the process is not to yield an overall agreement with which everyone will concur.
There will be no pay deal. Public service pay restoration was addressed in the recent proposed Lansdowne Road accord. Private-sector pay is being determined in general at individual company level.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said the various parties will not have to sign up to the final reports, which would “inform the Government”. She said the Government would reflect on the themes and ideas that emerged from the dialogue as it prepared for Budget 2016.
There appears to be no commitment that the Government will adopt any of the measures put forward.
In their invitation to the process, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin said they were “hoping for a genuine and robust dialogue, which will examine the realistic options open to the Government within the available fiscal space of around €1.2 billion to €1.5 billion”.
The Government has set out how significant portions of this money will be spent. It has earmarked about €300 million to finance public service pay and pension restoration next year.
While all parties will be given an opportunity to make their cases, the Coalition’s scope for meeting their demands within the current spending parameters appears limited.
