John Bruton
Question:8 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach the work undertaken by the National Centre for Partnership in the past six months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25080/99]
Ceisteanna – Questions. - Social Partnership.
Ruairí Quinn
Question:9 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach if he will make a statement on his speech to the Conference on Social Partnership in Ireland on 24 November 1999. [25347/99]
Ruairí Quinn
Question:10 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach if he will give a report on the progress of talks on a possible successor to Partnership 2000; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25348/99]
John Bruton
Question:11 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach if he will elaborate on the points he made in his speech to the Conference on Social Partnership in Ireland on 24 November 1999; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25908/99]
John Bruton
Question:12 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach the status of the talks on a successor agreement to Partnership 2000; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26213/99]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 to 12, inclusive, together.
As I indicated to the House on 17 November, the negotiations on a new social partnership agreement, which were launched on 9 November, are subject to confidentiality strictures. However, the discussions have focused on the broad positions of the different social partners and many of the themes identified in the NESC overview have been discussed.
A scheduled meeting with the social partners was held yesterday. The focus of discussion was on the budget, particularly in the partnership context. I will make a statement on the budget later this evening and I will meet each of the social partner pillars tomorrow evening. Obviously, I cannot comment further, except to say I believe it is crucially important that we achieve a successful outcome to the partnership negotiations which, together with the national development plan and the budget, form the basis for delivering on the vision in the NESC document, to which we all subscribe.
The National Centre for Partnership, established under Partnership 2000, has undertaken a significant amount of work in the past six months, as agreed by the board. The work undertaken falls into a number of broad categories. Under training, in the public sector the programme entitled Working Together – A Training Programme for Partnership in the Public Sector, has been developed by the NCP and this training programme is now being delivered within organisations across the Civil Service and the wider public service. For the private sector, a 13 module training programme and a supporting video have been developed jointly by the NCP, IBEC and ICTU as a very substantial contribution to enterprise level partnership. A business plan for the joint delivery of this programme in early 2000 is being implemented at present.
The NCP has also been working closely with a number of private and public sector bodies to facilitate promotion of the concept and implementation of partnership. In the private sector, the NCP has conducted a series of regional seminars on the topic of partnership at enterprise level. IBEC and ICTU have been active participants in the seminars and the feedback has been positive.
In September, I opened an inaugural annual conference on partnership at enterprise level organised by the NCP. The conference featured contributions at policy level from speakers from Ireland, the UK and Sweden, as well as inputs from practitioners in the areas of partnership.
In the public service, the development of a database is in hand to monitor the progress being made in the partnership groups in each sector. The intention is to set a best practice standard to assist management and staff to deliver an enhanced working environment and efficient service to the public. It is also intended to use this database to promote more research and development into the partnership process in the public service.
In addition to the ongoing work of the NCP an evaluation of the progress made on partnership in both the public and private sectors and the associated role of the NCP is currently under way in my Department. It is expected that the consultants engaged to carry out this evaluation will submit their report this month. This will form a useful backdrop and context to assist discussions on future action on partnership, post-Partnership 2000.
On Wednesday, 24 November, I addressed a conference for public sector union officials and activists on the theme of social partnership in Ireland. The aim was to review the future developments of partnership and chapter 10 of Partnership 2000. It was a well attended conference and the National Centre for Partnership will be following up with practical support on the ground on the outcome of the conference.
In my address to the conference I stressed the importance of our public service being organised and equipped to contribute effectively in order to sustain and enhance the success of partnership in recent years. We must be flexible and able to respond to the changing environment. Partnership, as a vehicle to modernise the public service, will play a vital role in this process.
I also referred to the problem we still have of how to reward genuine improvements in performance in the public service. In this context I referred to gainsharing as part of an overall reward and recognition strategy for the public service. The social partners will be addressing this important issue in the context of the negotiations on a new social partnership agreement.
What consultations did the Taoiseach have with the social partners about the budget?
The social partners had already stated that this would be the last budget under the last round and that the Government had substantively gone beyond their increases in it. In their various meetings they set down the kind of issues they wanted to see dealt with. They all put down those issues and, by and large, they have been well dealt with.
Does the Taoiseach agree that it is disastrous that a budget containing the largest amount of money ever given away has brought social partnership to the brink of collapse with the largest union withdrawing from talks with the Government? Is this not a disaster, particularly in view of the neglect of the low-paid in the budget?
I noted the pre-budget statements of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and SIPTU. Mr. Des Geraghty, in an interview in The Examiner before the budget,said he wanted to see people on low pay further taken out of the tax net. That happened. He wanted to see people on basic income and under the average industrial wage taken out of the higher rate of tax and he wanted to see as many people as possible taken from the higher rate and put into the lower. He has already indicated his strong support for those measures. The voluntary pillar in the social partnership generally stated that there are other issues which they want to see delivered on. We are now negotiating the next round for the next number of years. The last number of years have been well catered for and I hope we will do the same in the discussions ahead.
Did the Taoiseach set out deliberately to mislead the media and his own parliamentary party on 24 September when he was quoted in The Irish Times as saying—
The Deputy may not quote.
I am not quoting, I am merely referring to it. The Taoiseach is claimed to have said that cutting the top rate of tax was not a priority. In view of the expectation that a substantial reduction in low pay tax rates was on offer and had been recommended by the NESC, the budget that has emerged at the behest of the Progressive Democrats – Attorney General and all – is a travesty of what was expected? Can the Taoiseach indicate whether he now believes that, as a consequence of that, social partnership has been put at serious risk for the first time? What steps does he propose to take to repair the damage?
Social partnership has had many crises over the past 12 years. I have been through a number of them.
None like this.
I was there when it was tough.
The Taoiseach might be there again when it is tough.
I was there when we could not meet the pay agreements we had promised for two and a half years.
Payments that the Taoiseach had agreed himself.
No, we took up from Deputy Quinn's Government in 1986.
The MacSharry proposals. The Taoiseach should not tell lies.
I never tell lies. It is against my nature.
He should get back on message and back on track.
Deputy Quinn knows that the social partners stated that whatever happened in last Wednesday's budget with regard to credits, reductions or widening of bands or allowances would not be taken into account in negotiations. They made that absolutely clear and it was understood. They would still think the overwhelming number of the people they represent, both employers and workers, gained substantially from the budget.
What about the differential?
Does the Taoiseach not understand the difficulties of SIPTU representing their workers in social partnership talks in circumstances where the budget gave £4 per week to a family on £10,000 and £50 per week to a family on £50,000?
SIPTU knows precisely what is in the budget, as I do. People at all levels will pay less tax, less on the rates and, in the lifetime of this Government, I look forward to taking the maximum number of people ever out of the tax net. In the speech to which Deputy Quinn referred, I said one of our priorities is to find a way whereby the worst evil of the tax system can be removed, that is, where people on less than the average industrial wage are taxed at the higher rate. Nowhere else in Europe does that happen and that is what we addressed in this budget.
Does the Taoiseach still hold the view he expressed on 25 September that the 46 % rate is not an unreasonable rate to pay to provide for modern services? Where between here and Galway did he get gazumped and ambushed by the Progressive Democrats so that he slashed the rates in the manner outlined in the budget? What conversion occurred on the road back to Dublin to make him become a PD, not a Fianna Fáiler?
He is not even that.
There is a commitment in the programme for Government to bring down—
It was not a priority.
—our high tax rates. We still have—
The Taoiseach is contradicting what he said in Galway.
—a situation where, for example, a married woman who does a few hours overtime pays tax at over 50%, when one adds PRSI.
Is that speech for the bin?
(Dublin West): Does the Taoiseach agree the leaders of SIPTU withdrew from the partnership talks because they came under sustained pressure from their low paid members who are outraged at how they were treated in the budget? Does he accept the anger of the low paid members of trade unions and of others who are not, unfortunately, members of unions arises because they now understand they have been conned for years in so-called partnership deals which simply worked to keep them on exploitative wages? Does the Taoiseach accept or understand that to the injury of trying to survive on pitifully inadequate wages, low paid workers have been accorded the insult of the Minister for Finance hammering them for tax at the princely sum of £110 per week while in the same budget there are huge breaks for banks which make £1 billion profit per year?
The Deputy is giving a great deal of information to the Taoiseach. He should be specific.
(Dublin West): In view of the foregoing, will the Taoiseach accept that far from offering partnership, as partnership would normally be understood, in his treatment of single income families and low paid workers, the Minister for Finance has shot himself in both feet? Will he ask Deputy McCreevy for his resignation forthwith?
No is the answer to the last question. A Cheann Comhairle—
Not yet.
It might not be offered. Look at Brian Lenihan.
—I am committed, in the lifetime of this Government—
Leave Brian out of it.
—to continue to take people on low pay out of—
He was deserted by a former Taoiseach.
Leave him out of it.
—the higher rate of tax. It is vital that we continue to do that.
We all agree that one of the main difficulties of the income tax code is the low level of income at which people enter the higher tax rate. However, is it not a disgrace that people below the poverty line, on £110 per week, will still be taxed to the hilt? Is that not the biggest scandal?
Exactly.
Does the Taoiseach not understand why SIPTU is rebelling and why its members believe they were taken for a walk up the hill by the commitments in the NESC report on how the budget would approach taxation? Does he not understand the anger of the low paid that the budget has let them down despite the commitments that were made?
(Dublin West): He gave it to the banks instead.
I will make two points. The first is that I am committed, and will achieve it through each budget, to removing people on low pay from the tax net. That is the right thing to do. The people on low pay drifting into the higher rate of tax should be taken out of that band. Also, people who go to work, even where there are two incomes in the home, should not be hit for 50p in the pound. I agree with all those assertions.
I do not understand why a trade union movement, which states that whatever is contained in a budget would do nothing to change its negotiating position, should then feel aggrieved by a budgetary measure.
Perhaps I could explain the situation to the Taoiseach.
I must draw this question to a close.
May I finish?
The Taoiseach to conclude the question.
Perhaps I could explain matters to the Taoiseach.
When the Taoiseach is in possession, the Deputy should resume his seat.
He does not want me to explain.
I do.
When the trade union movement states that the NESC strategy does not include this year, it cannot change to being inclusive if it does not like something in the budget.
Nonsense.
This year's budget was the last under Partnership 2000. We have already substantially achieved what we set out to do and that was progressed further last week. Most workers, including the vast number of SIPTU workers, will gain. They are not the MANDATE workers and that is the reality.
May I ask the Taoiseach a question?
No, I must draw Question Time to a close. We are over the time limit. Taoiseach's Question Time is concluded.
No one expected such an unfair budget.
The Taoiseach is lecturing the unions now.