The Government has proposed the introduction of a new €250 million scheme to subsidise jobs at risk in vulnerable companies.
The proposed new temporary employment subsidy scheme which was outlined to trade unions and employers tonight is aimed at assisting up to 30,000 people.
The scheme would be targeted at jobs in the manufacturing and internationally traded services sector.
The jobs involved would have to be fundamentally viable, and be in companies which were trading healthily up until last summer.
The Government envisages that the scheme would run until the end of 2010.
The scheme forms part of an overall Government paper on a national economic recovery deal proposed to social partners last night.
Other areas covered by the paper include help for people with mortgage arrears, assistance for private pension funds facing difficulties and public sector reform.
However there were indications that the Government’s proposed jobs package may not be sufficient to meet the demands of trade unions.
The Irish Congress of Trade unions has sought a €1billion state investment in job protection and creation measures.
This move was broadly backed by the employer’s group IBEC. Arriving at talks in Government buildings last night the general secretary of ICTU David Begg, said if the Government’s jobs investment was less than one billion euro it would cause “a big problem”,
The Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Tanaiste Mary Coughlan and the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan were all involved in the talks with union and employer leaders.
Ealier, one of the country’s top trade union leaders has said that the era of social partnership is coming to an end.
Arriving for crucial talks with Government officials on a national economic recovery deal, Eamon Devoy of Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) said he believed a package of measures to be proposed by the Government would be “insufficient”.
He said that social partnership talks had been dead for some time and “tonight would be the deciding factor in that”.
Mr Devoy said there had been no meaningful social partnership talks for the last two to three months.
Mr Devoy said that employers had abandoned the social partnership and that the Government had effectively walked away from it also.
He said trade unions needed to protect their members who have been attacked in the vacuum that had been created.
Mr Devoy said that it was time for unions to confront employers who had been telling their workers that everything would be done as part of social partnership.
“There has been no social partnership for some time,” he said.
Reuters
