Bertie Ahern
Ceist:5 Mr. B. Ahern asked the Taoiseach when he last met with the social partners. [16786/95]
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Meetings with Social Partners.
This Government has an intense level of contact with the social partners. I have met employer, farmer and trade union organisations many times, at national and local level, on both a formal and informal basis. All of these meetings have been open and frank and we have discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest. I have found such contact very useful.
The central review committee of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work holds regular meetings and I, and other senior Ministers, are represented at the highest possible level. The Secretary of my Department who chairs the committee briefs me regularly on the work of the CRC. In this way the committee's deliberations on a wide range of issues are brought to my attention and are taken by me as a constructive input into policy formulation.
The concerns of the social partners as expressed through the CRC have a real impact on the day to day implementation of policy. For example, after the previous Government had decided to reduce the participation level on the community employment programme, the CRC made strong representations to the Government on the detrimental effect this move would have on communities making great use of the programme. This Government examined the matter and found a way to maintain the high level of participation that the programme had achieved at the end of last year.
My interest in keeping in regular contact with the social partners has not been confined to the organisations involved in the Programme for Competitiveness and Work. I addressed the National Economic and Social Forum last month, a group which includes a very wide representation of social partners. In the near future I also intend to speak to the National Economic and Social Council a body which, under the current Government, has been expanded to include a broader range of social partners, by the inclusion for the first time of the Council for the Status of Women and the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed. As with the CRC I am briefed regularly on the workings of the NESC by the Secretary of my Department who is also the chairperson of the council.
Communications between Government and social partners are continuous in the form of regular meetings between Ministers and individual partners. I attend conferences, seminars and a range of other meetings organised by ICTU, IBEC and the IFA, and these together with a number of informal meetings help reaffirm, for both the social partners and me, that channels for the easy exchange of concerns and ideas remain open.
I will of course continue to meet the social partners on a formal and informal basis, as the need arises.
The Taoiseach is obviously unaware that the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Deputy Richard Bruton, presented his budget as being a vast increase despite the fact that we said it would lead to harmful effects on community employment. The Taoiseach will be aware of recent comments by trades union leaders that they were disenchanted with the central review committee and the workings of the social partnership and would not participate in a future programme. I would like to hear the Taoiseach's comments.
I think the Deputy is referring to statements by Mr. William Attley——
Not necessarily.
——which concerned his worry that partnership exists at national level through the organs established by the Government but that it does not necessarily exist in the same way at firm level. That is a matter of concern within the trade union movement. I had a recent meeting with the trade union movement where that point about lack of partnership at company level was raised strongly. I subsequently had a meeting with IBEC, at which I strongly conveyed the concern of the trade union movement.
I accept the need to ensure that partnership is not just at the top but applies at every level of industrial relations. How that is done in practice is best decided by individual firms and their representative trade unions in a pragmatic way. There should be a commitment to deepening the concept of social partnership to ensure it applies at company as well as national level.
While in Opposition the Taoiseach was keen on the idea of having representatives of the unemployed on the central review committee. In fact, his party put forward or were strongly involved in putting forward a Private Members' motion, despite the fact that in that same period we had the forum on which the unemployed were represented. Does the Taoiseach intend to stick to his strong view that unemployed persons should be represented on the central review committee?
The Deputy's recollection is accurate but the sequence of her recollections is slightly wrong. I expressed concern at the fact that there was no forum through which the unemployed could participate in social policy and as a result of that pressure the Government established the National Economic and Social Forum which includes the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. Subsequently, when I became Taoiseach, I extended the membership of the National Economic and Social Council, a separate body, to include the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. The public good would not be served by adding members to the central review committee. The arrangement whereby the wider range of social partners are represented and their concerns expressed through the National Economic and Social Forum and the National Economic and Social Council is the best one. Industrial relations would become unduly complicated and cumbersome if the membership of the central review committee was extended.
In the context of a new programme, will the Taoiseach agree that the social partnership should include the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed? There are five groups who represent the farming and rural community. Will he give an undertaking that in the context of a new programme, if we have one, he will extend an invitation to be included to the organisation that solely represents the interests of the unemployed?
It is precisely to ensure that the unemployed are represented in the social partnership discussions that I supported the decision of the previous Government to establish the National Economic and Social Forum, which includes the unemployed. For the same reason I, as Taoiseach, extended the representation of the National Economic and Social Council to include the unemployed. The National Economic and Social Council has already started on the preparatory work for the next social partnership arrangement. As members of the National Economic and Social Council, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed is fully involved in that preparatory work.
So they will be represented on the central review committee.
Furthermore, I expect to meet the National Economic and Social Council in the near future. I expect to hear from the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed representative and all the other organisations represented on the National Economic and Social Council, their views on the appropriate shaping of social partnership. I intend to do everything I can to ensure that the widest possible range of economic opinion, including the valid and important contribution of the unemployed, is heard in the evolution of social partnership arrangements.