Union leaders reject Lenihan’s criticism of social partnership

CRITICISM OF the social partnership process by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan was yesterday rejected by union leaders.

Mr Lenihan said an external report on the Department of Finance, recently completed but yet to be published, would identify “the dominance of the social partnership process” in damaging the State’s financial system.

He referred to "uncosted undertakings, which are financially unsustainable, being made", in an interview on RTÉ Radio One's Morning Irelandprogramme.

“There’s no doubt the Department of Finance lost its influence in the administrative machine and I’m quite proud of the fact that I’ve restored quite a lot of that influence.”

The report referred to by Mr Lenihan will be presented to the Government in the coming weeks and will recommend changes in the structure and operation of the department. It will also highlight the damage done to the financial system by the “political programmes which political parties themselves drew up after elections”, according to Mr Lenihan.

Siptu president Jack O’Connor accused Mr Lenihan of attempting to “scapegoat” the social partnership process in order to divert attention from the Government’s economic “mismanagement”.

Mr O’Connor insisted the trade union movement had played no part in the “recklessness” that led to the creation and subsequent collapse of the property bubble.

“Minister Lenihan is now attempting to divert attention from the responsibility he bears for the present mess by scapegoating the so-called ‘social partnership’ process,” he said.

“Yes, there were pay increases during the boom years, yes, they did reflect the bubble, yes, they did play into it – but they did not cause it. That was the exclusive responsibility of the bankers, the speculators and the developers who hugely enriched themselves as a result of the Government’s policy failures.”

David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said “pretty much every minister for finance before the current one” had been “extremely well disposed and is on the record as attributing a great deal of merit to social partnership”.

He said he was “surprised” at Mr Lenihan’s remarks, adding that the Minister “was commenting in the context of the financial crisis facing the country which is pretty exclusively down to the failures in the banking system”.

Mr Begg was speaking on RTÉ Radio One's News at Oneprogramme.