Job cuts and strikes set to mark year of discontent

WIDESPREAD redundancies and strikes as well as cut-price public services look set to make 2009 a long year of discontent.

The Government faces 12 months of decimating public spending through swingeing job cuts, frontline service withdrawals and, it looks likely, at least a partial reneging on a national wage agreement upon which the ink has barely dried.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen last month said he wants the social partners to spearhead the revival of the exchequer finances, but the partnership process itself threatens to implode as the demands upon its constituents grow by the day.