THE BEST defence of public service jobs is to “have them as efficient and as effective as they can be”, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions (Ictu) has said.
David Begg said unions did not have to protect every existing working practice in the public service. Speaking on RTÉ Radio yesterday, Mr Begg said trade unions had to protect job security and pay and conditions in the public service. “We don’t have to protect every existing working practice in the public service,” he said. “The best defence of public services is to have them as efficient and as effective as they can be . . .”
He said if Taoiseach Brian Cowen opts for €4 billion in expenditure cuts in next month’s budget, he runs the risk of driving the economy into a prolonged slump. He also said there had been a volte face in Government policy since last April. “Last April, the public policy stance was that €2.5 billion of that amount was to come from taxation . . . but that has been completely eroded and gone out of the equation in a volte face that has not been seen ever in public policy formation.”
He would welcome a more progressive tax system with the burden carried by higher-paid people, he said. He also said if €4 billion is taken out of public expenditure, there will be increased deflation leading to increased unemployment.
“The proposition from the Government side is that if we take this pain now, we all say thank God that’s over and we can get back to reality, but that is not how it works” he said. The cuts would create a “deflationary mindset”.
But Danny McCoy, director general of the employers’ group Ibec, said if there was increased taxation it would have to focus on middle and lower income earners. Taxation hadn’t worked in the 1980s, he added.
“The reality of the Irish economy is that we don’t have a sufficient number of taxpayers in the high income to make up this gap that we have... If you really want to go the taxation route it will be on the low and middle income earners who are already suffering here.”