O'Connor not keen on FG-only govt
The president of Ireland’s largest trade union has said Fine Gael on its own in government would be “a recipe for disaster”.
Siptu’s Jack O’Connor believes the poll toppers would continue to implement the same austerity measures as Fianna Fáil, leading to more unemployment and emigration.
Mr O’Connor said a balanced government would be a Labour-led coalition with Fine Gael.
“If that party (Fine Gael) is in government on its own it will be a recipe for disaster because it will be committed to the same deflationary policies which it outlined in its own manifesto,” he added.
Mr O’Connor, also president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), spoke out as he launched the congress paper A Better, Fairer Way to Recovery.
Its five-point alternative strategy to tackle the economic and jobs crisis focused on a new deal on Ireland’s €85bn bailout package, creating jobs, protecting incomes, respecting rights in the workplace, and protecting public services.
As general secretary David Begg said congress was not advising people to vote for any particular party in the election, Mr O’Connor broke ranks.
The union leader said he was speaking with his “Siptu hat on” as he revealed analysis for members concluded the best outcome for working people would be voting Labour and transferring preferences to others committed to the principals of social solidarity.
“Otherwise we’ll end up with another government doing pretty much the same thing as the outgoing one has done,” he said.
Mr O’Connor said he did not believe Fine Gael politicians were “bad people” and were well-intended, but warned they would have a very difficult job.
He maintained the last time Fine Gael was a single party government, as parent party Cumann na nGaedheal from 1927 to 1932, the country was condemned to 60 years of unemployment, emigration and misery.
“And that will be the effect of continuing the same policy that has been pursued by Brian Lenihan over the last two and a half years and that is what that party will do,” he added.
Meanwhile Mr Begg said attempts to meet the 3% deficit target by 2014 were economically self-defeating and almost certain to thwart a return to growth.
Branding the austerity programme of the outgoing government as a total failure, he said it had caused enormous economic damage and cost thousands of jobs.
“Four austerity budgets have sucked €20.6bn out of the economy. And the result? More people out of work, a higher deficit and the country forced into the arms of the IMF,” he said.
“Where is the evidence that more of the same would lead to a different outcome?”
Mr Begg said the country needed to create space in which growth could take hold, by extending the timeframe for fixing the public finances to 2017.
Fine Gael’s Lucinda Creighton said union bosses would dread the party in government as it would put taxpayers’ interests ahead of the vested interests.
“Union bosses may pine for the days when they had an undue influence on government policy,” she said.
“The fiasco of public service benchmarking and the social partnership is the sorry legacy of this cosy relationship.
“It has left us with a bloated civil service and an unaffordable public sector wage bill.”
Fine Gael has pledged to cut out public sector waste and to reduce employees by 30,000 if elected.
