Major priorities have been set out for negotiation of a new national industrial relations deal at last week's final plenary meeting of the Sustaining Progress agreement in Dublin.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is to issue invitations to the social partners in the autumn to join talks on a successor agreement. Work has now started on a review of the benchmarking pay system for the public service introduced as part of the partnership process, to be completed by 2007. Thus the major parameters of the next industrial round must be debated and agreed before the end of the year.
This would, if agreed, be the seventh three-year version of the series which began in 1987. They have brought stability and predictability to Ireland's industrial relations, by increasing living standards and extending social inclusion. They have been innovative and widely commented on, as a central ingredient of the Celtic Tiger boom years and continuing economic growth and prosperity. The combination of central government involvement, employer and trade union participation and a broad agenda including taxation and social policy as well as pay rates has put down deep roots, despite varying conditions when each agreement was reached.
These are the upsides of such a centralised neo-corporatist system. The downsides also need to be debated. They include the inflexibility and unfairness built into a one size fits all approach; the bypassing of normal political accountability when public policy is determined in this way; the erosion of local bargaining tied to profitability and productivity, which has seen trade union numbers fall in the private sector; and the unacceptable lack of transparency with which the last benchmarking agreement was reached, which makes it difficult to evaluate. Many of those involved feel this is an outmoded system for a transformed economy.
If there is to be another national round, Mr Ahern insists tax cuts will not be part of it. They were not part of Sustaining Progress, which was more restricted to pay and conditions than previous partnership agreements. It was much less ambitious on the social front. The small firms association, Isme, was critical of the pay elements, which provided for a total increase for private sector workers of 12.5 per cent over three years, while the public sector received an extra 9 per cent through benchmarking.
Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary David Begg says any new agreement should focus on priority issues, including health, pensions, care, the role of the State in the economy and a need to avoid a race to the bottom in employment standards. He questioned whether a policy of high growth is still appropriate, given the need for high immigration to service it and difficulties in providing a decent social infrastructure for a growing population. While neither the Government nor the social partners alone can determine this important issue, now is the time to give it the attention it deserves.