The Fine Gael deputy leader, Mr Richard Bruton, has criticised the traditional model of social partnership, saying it must become a "people's partnership" rather than the current one of vested interests.
As representatives from Government, trade unions, employers and community groups prepare for a new round of social partnership talks today, Mr Bruton said the current model focused on too few issues: wages, employment and profits. The traditional partnership deals involving wage increases, tax cuts, absolute priority for economic growth and the avoidance of contentious policies were out of date, he said.
Calling for an end to this traditional consensus model, he said it had "blunted the quality of political debate and added to scepticism about the effectiveness of elected institutions". It had allowed the Government shelter from political accountability while emasculating the Dáil and Seanad "as a forum where conflicts between competing interests in relation to public policy can be worked out openly and transparently".
He said the scope for further traditional partnership deals was limited due to a number of changes. The scope for further tax-cutting was exhausted if a decent standard of public services was to be maintained; the imperative to create employment has reduced because there were fewer Irish workers seeking employment opportunities; and there were growing social problems which higher employment rates had not resolved.
The current model had given priority to the interests of producers over consumers; slowed down public service reform; shelved devolution of power; distorted key market reform; blunted political accountability, and neglected "policies that help create connected lives".
"The primacy of the traditional partnership of employers and trade unions has tended to focus policy excessively on the calculus of the workplace: wages, employment and profits," he said. " Partnership with community is undoubtedly a vital concept in the building of new policies. However, it is not best served in a social partnership forum where, very clearly, employers and unions are first-division players, whereas the broader community interests representing the concerns of the environment, of the consumer, of the life-cycle pressures on the family, of the people caught in the backwash of economic progress are relegated to the second division."