ICTU chief warns on policy of growth for growth’s sake

FAILURE to deal with issues of health, housing, the caring infrastructure, upskilling of workers and a less unequal society will eventually undermine Ireland’s economic prosperity, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) warned yesterday.

David Begg, speaking at Mallow Business Breakfast Club in Co Cork, said there is a good prospect of cracking these issues over ten years if a consensus can be achieved.

"This is not a big vision thing. It is a practical approach which would give the concept of the social wage a real meaning. It would reinvigorate social partnership and create in Ireland a reasonably fair society and a decent quality of life," he said.

Mr Begg said a start had been made on housing, but a more considered look at economic policy was needed. Since the 1980s, the priority has been jobs which rightly required a focus on maximising economic growth. But he was beginning to wonder whether growth at all costs was appropriate to current circumstances.

"To continue to grow at 5% per annum is only possible with immigration of €50,000-€60,000 per annum. And that assumes that all the people will come to stay."

Indeed, jobs could be lost to Irish workers due to outsourcing while immigration grows, he said.

"This would be a costly proposition people who come here need houses, hospitals and schools while also potentially creating social tension."

He added: "We should try to maximise indigenous labour force growth and re-skilling of workers in balance with sustainable levels of immigration."

"I sometimes think our national psyche has not assimilated this change in our fortunes. We do not really believe that the bubble will not someday burst and we will be back to where we were eighteen years ago.

"If we really believed we had become a mature industrialised country we would be putting massive resources into planning and building the future."

Mallow Business Breakfast Club is a forum to facilitate business development in North Cork with the Irish Examiner as media sponsor and Fleming Construction as event sponsor. Proceeds go to the Patrician Academy School Development Programme.

Mallow Town Council, Cork County Council, IDA, Mallow Chamber of Commerce, North Cork Enterprise Board, UCC, CIT, FÁS and SIPTU are patrons.