Keep minimum wage cut - Ibec

Business group Ibec has called on the next government to keep the minimum wage at €7.65 an hour and review a series of regulated wage agreements.

Unveiling a list of pro-business proposals in Dublin today, Ibec argued for the €1 cut in the minimum wage implemented by the outgoing government to be kept in place.

Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin have all pledged to reverse the cut if elected.

Ibec director general Danny McCoy added that regulated wage agreements in the retail, hospitality and construction sectors were "like a whale that has been beached after the Celtic Tiger period", with the rates fixed "too high".

"I think we need to be aggressive in the first 100 days of the next administration to get this sorted out," he said.

The group, which represents more than 7,500 employers in Ireland, also wants the next government to make changes to the welfare system "to ensure that there is a strong incentive to work" despite higher income taxes introduced in the last budget.

As part of a "spirit of collaboration" between business and government, Ibec's "Jobs Manifesto for Election 2011" document proposes there should be greater incentives for public-private partnerships (PPPs) on infrastructure projects. A National Infrastructure Development Agency should be set up to achieve this, it states.

Its other proposals include the introduction of a loan guarantee scheme for small and medium enterprises and the appointment of a single senior minister "to drive the jobs agenda across government".

Ibec also said there was a risk that political leaders' focus on the campaign trail meant Ireland would "miss out" on an opportunity to argue against plans for a pan-European corporate tax system.

Mr McCoy said he was concerned political leaders would "sleepwalk through" a move by the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy to put the creation of a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) back on the European agenda.

European leaders discussed the creation of such a corporate tax base as part of plans for closer economic co-operation at a summit in Brussels on Friday.

"There is a present and immediate danger in terms of what is happening with the common consolidated corporate tax base," Mr McCoy said. "We cannot afford to lose these weeks."

Ibec believes a CCCTB would result in higher compliance costs for businesses and reduce the benefit of Ireland's low corporation tax rate.

However, the business group said it viewed Ireland's memorandum of understanding with the EU and the IMF as a pro-enterprise document.

"During elections you will see a lot of promises that don't see the light of day, but we're sanguine in that there is a memorandum of understanding that will fundamentally constrain any exotic ideas that emerge," Mr McCoy said.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) also came in for criticism, with Ibec describing it as "impenetrable" and demanding a review of its effectiveness. The Ibec director general said the banks were "caught up with Nama" rather than dealing with the needs of their small business customers.

"Good businesses are coming to us and saying they have problems accessing credit, and when they can access it, the costs are prohibitively high," Mr McCoy said.

Meanwhile, Ibec economist Fergal O'Brien said he expected Ireland's gross domestic product to grow by 1.8 per cent this year. But he forecast that gross national product - the measure of economic growth that excludes profits made by the multinational sector - would grow by just 0.8 per cent, indicating the fragility of the domestic economy.