Union accuses Government of targeting poor

The state’s largest trade union accused the Department of Finance tonight of sabotaging attempts to get the country out of recession by targeting the less well-off.

Siptu claimed top officials were hell-bent on wrecking the economy by piling the burden on society’s most vulnerable and ignoring proposals from the social partners.

Jack O’Connor, general president, claimed it was cynical of Finance Minister Brian Lenihan to suggest a cut to the minimum wage.

The top trade union leader demanded the Taoiseach rein in the Department or stand down and call a general election.

“These are the people who having presided over the creation of the mess are now hell bent on trying to resolve it at the expense of ordinary working people and the less-well off in society,” Mr O‘Connor said.

“They have in fact sabotaged every attempt that has been made, not only by ourselves in the trade union movement, but by the employers organisation Ibec and by the Construction Industry Council by trying to forge a better way out of the situation.”

Mr O‘Connor said the Government had flatly rejected a Siptu proposal for a €1bn job creation programme.

At the MacGill summer school in Co Donegal last night Mr Lenihan said the Government would review the minimum wage, currently €8.65 an hour, if it proved a hindrance to creating jobs.

Mr O’Connor claimed the move would target the weak while ignoring the rich who fuelled the financial crisis, and suggested it could damage the social partnership process.

“What we want to say on the record is that we want to call on the Taoiseach to rein these people (Department of Finance officials) in,” Mr O’Connor said.

“We have to say to the Taoiseach that unless he can rein them in, it would be better if he went for a General Election. I’m very reluctant to call for that.”

Mr O’Connor rejected suggestions the Irish were among the best paid in Europe, claiming we ranked eighth highest out of 21 countries.

The trade union chief said there was possibly scope for a certain number of job cuts in the public sector.

While he claimed the 17,500 recommended in the report from An Bord Snip Nua was excessive, he declined to put a figure on how many they’d propose.

“We are saying that a certain number of job reductions are possible,” he said.

“We don’t know whether the 17,500 can be reached, it seems a tall order, but we do believe that a certain number and maybe a sizeable number would be possible.”

He said the report by Colm McCarthy was excessive and reflected the “slash-and-burn” approach taken by the Department of Finance.

Mr O’Connor warned that unless the Finance Minister changed his policy he risked following in the footsteps of his predecessor Sean McEntee, whom he claimed condemned the country to a decade of zero growth and mass emigration in the 1950s.