The business group Ibec has today dismissed "old-style protests" and called for a plan that protects jobs rather than disrupts them.
In a statement issued ahead of the planned Ictu national day of protest tomorrow, Ibec said an agreed plan was required to get Ireland working again, "not the deliberate disruption of public services and business by those who already have jobs".
Ibec director of industrial relations Brendan McGinty said: "The real casualties of the economic downturn are the 422,500 people who have lost their jobs or who are underemployed. These are extraordinary times. Old solutions and old style protests will not make one Irish person better off or their job more secure.
"We need to work together to get ourselves out of this crisis quickly so that we restore our own confidence, and international confidence, in our country. It is counterproductive to meet the inevitable adjustment by disrupting employment and services" Ibec said.
"The practical thing to do now is for all of us to work to keep costs down and for the government to direct funds towards keeping people in work. This makes more sense than spending the same amount of money to support those same people out of work.
"When the facts are presented, almost everybody privately accepts that reductions of income are inevitable if we are to protect jobs" the organisation added.