Union leaders ‘as culpable as bankers’ for crisis, says Glen Dimplex chief

TRADE unions are more culpable than bankers in this country for what has happened over the last two decades, according to one of the country’s top businessmen.

Chief executive of Glen Dimplex Sean O’Driscoll said “the Jack O’Connors, the David Beggs are as culpable as any banker in this country, in fact more culpable for what has happened... over the last two decades”.

“The social partners, unelected, who walked in and out of Government buildings, who just love to jump in front of a microphone, they are as culpable as anybody else,” he said.

“When I hear them talking about how they are not prepared to talk about restructuring in the public sector, they are living in the dark ages,” he added. Mr O’Driscoll was speaking at UCC’s annual commerce conference yesterday.

Glen Dimplex employs 10,000 (3,000 in Ireland) and has 26 manufacturing plants worldwide.

Also speaking at the conference was Ryanair deputy chief executive, Michael Cawley, who said the public sector is an “unrealistic business model”.

Issues with the Competition Authority were also raised by Mr O’Driscoll, who spoke of an incident three years ago when one of its British operations was looking to acquire another British firm.

He said Glen Dimplex had to get clearance from the Competition Authority in Ireland, which cost it €350,000, despite the two companies having no employees in Ireland.

He said that they had to get approval because the Glen Dimplex group is Irish-owned and had a turnover of over €40m on the island of Ireland and the British company that it was acquiring had a turnover and sales into Ireland of £6m.

“This was absolutely crackers stuff,” he said.

“The worst part was it took six months from when we signed the contract to when we could take ownership of the company,” he said. “And what happens is that business drifted for six months.”

Mr O’Driscoll also spoke of the “huge problems” Glen Dimlpex has with their manufacturing bases in Ireland.

He said that the company has two sites in Northern Ireland and two in the Republic, but said the difference in pay rates between the two locations is 22%, which is primarily driven by exchange rates.

“I can’t do anything about the exchange rate, but I have to do something about the fact that we’re no longer competitive,” he said. The company is reducing the number of people it has in Ireland as a result.