Ahern calls for balance between workers' rights and competition

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today urged all sides in the social partnership talks to strike a balance between maintaining competition and protecting workers.

As unions, employers, the voluntary sector and farming groups joined the Government for the long-awaited negotiations, Mr Ahern insisted Irish businesses had to price themselves in line with the market. And he warned against taking the strong economy for granted.

Mr Ahern outlined a series of objectives for all sides to address during the talks: “Maintaining our growth, maintaining our employment, growing the economy, keeping flexible and competitive and then at the same time making sure that employment standards are sufficiently protected as we continue to employ more people in this country.”

The seventh round of social partnership talks, which began today several weeks late, are planned to run for the next month-and-a-half.

The Taoiseach insisted a deal could be done in that time and added that a lot of the ground had already been covered.

He warned against over-regulation and oppressive statutory control of businesses claiming it would be the workers who suffered in the long run.

“If you regulate them out of existence who is hurt? Workers, ordinary people and it’s in nobody’s interest to come up with conditions and circumstances that force investment out of this country and nowadays there’s plenty of takers for investment, “ he said.

“It’s a competitive world out there and we should never get complacent.”

And Mr Ahern went on: “The fact that we are doing very well now we should never be too complacent about where it has come from.”

Mr Ahern recalled that during talks for the first social partnership agreement the burning issues involved unemployment, social deprivation and exclusion.

The talks will be dominated by the events of the last 12 months which saw two leading firms, Irish Ferries and Gama Construction embroiled in controversies over the alleged exploitation of employees.

Unions have set out a list of demands geared towards improving workers rights and preventing a repeat of the long-running and bitter disputes.

But business chiefs and employers on the other hand have cautioned against further wage increases for public sector workers.

Taking the advice of some of the country’s leading economists at the ESRI, officials at the business federation IBEC have insisted pay rises must be below the rate of inflation.

Failure to do so, they have insisted, will damage competitiveness in the economy.

Mr Ahern was joined by Tánaiste Mary Harney, Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin, Government advisors and other senior members from all the departments for the talks.