IBEC urges halt to 'plethora' of worker protection laws

A halt should be called to the "plethora" of regulations designed to protect workers, the employers' organisation, IBEC, has said.

At the publication of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation's social policy document in Dublin yesterday, its director-general, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, also said that the "single greatest cause of stress among Irish wor-kers, particularly younger wor-kers, was the lack of childcare".

While enterprise thrived "through the free movement of people, goods, capital and ideas", Mr O'Sullivan said, "excessive regulations and restrictions" stifled them. A well-intentioned "good idea" in a government department or an EU directorate could become the last straw to a small business struggling to keep going."

Nineteen pieces of workplace legislation had been introduced since 1993, including the Unfair Dismissals Act, Maternity Protection Act, the Organisation of Working Time Act and the Equal Status Act, he said. Legislation "should only be introduced as a last resort" and a voluntary code of worker protection was much better. "If we were to replicate the same amount of legislation in the next 10 years, we'd have a very inflexible workplace."

The publication of Social Policy in a Competitive Economy was timed to ensure "that we put forward our position on these things in the run-up to an election".

A fairer society was better for everyone and the best way of tackling such issues as poverty and inequality was a "competitive, lean and efficient productive sector" with "plenty of jobs on the back of a successful productive sector".

Ms Jackie Harrison, IBEC's director of social policy, said much had been achieved in the past decade. The numbers in work had risen from 1.6 million in 1991 to 1.72 million last year; unemployment fell from 15.7 per cent in 1993 to 3.7 per cent last year; consistent poverty declined from 15.1 per cent in 1994 to 6.2 per cent in 2000, but there were challenges going forward, she said. Key among these was childcare.

Considerable resources had been allocated to develop a childcare infrastructure under the National Development Plan, but the monies were not being drawn down to the extent that had been hoped, Ms Harrison said. She put this down in part to aspects of the planning permission process. The IBEC document calls for a review of the criteria for drawing down these monies.