Madam, – Over recent months the Irish Congress of Trades Unions have claimed they regretted the fact that, while I had consulted widely on pending budget cuts, I had not met them.
They are correct in that I have indeed met a range of groups interested in discussing the impact of the cuts.
Many of those groups presented me with their ideas on how best to manage the funding shortfall and I have found their input very useful in current engagements with Executive colleagues.
The trade union movement represent those at the coalface in Northern Ireland. Their members will be directly affected by the cuts and they are also in a position to provide useful insights into how we can best manage the situation. The unions, however, for whatever reason, did not think their members’ views were important enough to seek a meeting to convey their concerns.
Over the summer period I did not refuse to meet anyone who requested a meeting and it is a pity that the trade unions neglected to avail themselves of the opportunities which a wide range of other groups took up.
Furthermore, the unions also fail to mention that my officials met them in August as part of a wider exercise to brief key stakeholders on the spending review. That meeting, however, was requested by my officials and not the union movement. – Yours, etc,