Ultimately, the proof of how much, if any, heed the Government will pay to the views of the participants at the national economic dialogue will not be known until the budget is delivered in October.
However, given the diversity of opinion on key issues among those present at the proceedings at Dublin Castle, at least some will be disappointed.
The proceedings provided a forum for about 140 representatives of different groups including the business community, trade unions, farmers and the community and voluntary sector, to set out their views on a range of issues they believed should be given priority in the framing of the budget for 2016.
The Government was at pains to point out that this was an exercise aimed at listening to various opinions. It was not a set of negotiations and it certainly was not a return to the old social partnership model where key decisions on pay, tax and a whole swathe of other issues were taken in private by the Government and various interest groups with little Oireachtas involvement.
Closed shop
Taoiseach Enda Kenny went out of his way to criticise social partnership as practised by previous administrations. He said this “had become a closed shop, where decisions with national consequences were made behind closed doors by a chosen few, accountable to nobody”.
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said the national economic dialogue was “not a parliament” but a discussion.
“We are not going back to the social partnership model where representatives of any sectoral interest get to make binding decisions on everybody else.”
In the run up the next budget, the key area of difference between many participants was on the crucial matter of spending and taxation.
Too much
In general, business community representatives favoured tax cuts, while the unions and social justice campaigners wanted to see more resources devoted to public spending. Some economists, on the other hand, were concerned the Government could be planning to give away too much in the budget.
The Taoiseach said he wanted to see an open discussion, which he hoped would “lead to a new kind of debate on our budgetary policy”.
However, from the outset he made it clear, despite the criticism of the trade unions and social campaigners, there would be no change to the Government’s stated policy of allocating between €1.2 billion and €1.5 billion in additional funding next year to be divided evenly between improved public services and tax cuts.
At the first day of the forum everyone was given an opportunity to have their say, particularly in eight informative break-out sessions on different topics, chaired by Cabinet Ministers.
It remains to be seen whether the Government takes on board many, if any, of the suggestions put forward or whether the national economic dialogue represented just a new and concise mechanism for interest groups to present their pre-budget submissions.
