FG’s hot-and-cold approach to social partnership

YOUR columnist Diarmaid Ferriter (February 21) has drawn attention to the argument advanced by Niamh Puirséil, historian of the Labour Party, that “social partnership could have become a reality much earlier if Fine Gael had not been so hostile to trade unions when in government in the 1980s”.

Whether or not such social partnership can continue to meet the future needs of Irish workers — in respect of both the quantity and quality of job creation and the required improvement in living standards — is, of course, an issue yet to be determined through the democratic structures and procedures of the trade union movement. But it is doubtful if national debate has been advanced by the statement on February 11 from Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton when he sniped at our movement by describing social partnership as “a process dominated by producer interests” and “a cosy arrangement among insiders”.

There is indeed a disappointing sense of déjà vu to all of this. For it was John Bruton, in his leader’s address to the Fine Gael árd fheis in May 1994, who had long ago used similar language to denounce social partnership as “this cosy consensus” with “insider-type policies, of the kind favoured by Fianna Fáil and Labour”.