TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen and senior Ministers are expected to intervene in the troubled social partnership process and to meet trade unions and other groups next week in a final bid to reach agreement on an agreement for national recovery.
This will be the first direct engagement by senior politicians in the process since the row over the introduction of the pension levy in early February.
There has been growing pessimism among all sides in recent days on whether an agreement could be signed.
An informal deadline set by some trade unions for determining whether a deal could be reached in principle passed unsuccessfully last weekend.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) said yesterday that talks with the Government on a social solidarity deal for national recovery had effectively ended and that ball was now in the court of the Government.
Speaking after a meeting of the Ictu’s national executive, its general secretary David Begg said there was nothing more that it could say to the Government on the unions’ 10-point plan for economic recovery.
He said that it was “just not credible to keep talking and to get nothing back”.
Mr Begg described the talks with the Government as being like “playing handball against a haystack”.
The key issues for the trade unions include the introduction of a pension protection scheme to assist workers in the private sector, new employment protection initiatives involving a €1 billion State investment as well as measures on home repossessions and on public service provision.
A Government spokesman said last night that the Cabinet had been given a briefing on the social partnership talks yesterday.
He said that the Government would reflect on the position and that a number of departments had been asked to carry out some more work in a number of areas.
The spokesman said that the Government would meet the social partners shortly.
It is understood that Mr Cowen and possibly Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will take part in the new talks.
Mr Begg said that it was clear that the Department of Finance now had the dominant role in Government affairs.
“That does not lend itself to easily addressing these issues,” he said.
Mr Begg said it was possible that a failure to agree a social partnership deal could lead to industrial action in some sectors.
However, he said this was not a logical or necessary projection out of the current situation. He said the position in this regard would evolve.
Meanwhile, Ictu is to meet employers’ body Ibec next week on a possible deal in relation to the private sector.
Ibec last week proposed bilateral negotiations on the private sector if an overall deal involving all the social partners could be achieved.
Ibec last week backed calls by trade unions for a massive State investment in job protection measures.
Isme, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, yesterday called on the Government to replace what it described as “the now defunct and discredited social partnership” with a more representative, democratic and open body to assist and advise it on fiscal, economic and social issues.
“The current rigid, insular and undemocratic model has lost all credibility through its cosy relationships, inappropriate and secretive deals and has contributed to the current economic mess in which certain interests have become entrenched and have developed a veto on change.
“In the current format, the partners in the partnership process are effectively unaccountable and the process itself has taken on a life of its own which has become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end,” it said.
Isme’s chief executive Mark Fielding said the Government had “facilitated social partnership to the detriment of the competitive SME sector of the economy”, which had been refused the right to participate in the core negotiating discussions.
