Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-10-Speech-4-017-000"
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"en.20110310.3.4-017-000"2
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"Mr President, the Memorandum of Understanding in relation to labour market issues is very clearly based on a simplistic economic theory that lower wages will ‘clear the market’, in other words, end unemployment. That is total and utter nonsense. It is not supported by practice on the ground. And I would draw the Commission’s attention to the Forfás review of labour cost competitiveness in Ireland, produced late last year, which says that firms generally prefer layoffs to pay cuts because they harm morale less. If you want to look at why we have had more layoffs than wage cuts in Ireland, that is the basis of it.
I would appeal to the Commission to comply with European law and stop interfering in labour market issues in Ireland. As you say, we have a long tradition of social partnership agreements in Ireland. Indeed, they are the basis of the fact that there has been no violence on the streets in Ireland: it is because the social partners and the government have sat down and made arrangements to adjust the labour market and adjust conditions to ensure that we can have some hope of recovery from the current crisis.
That tradition has ensured progress in Ireland, but the programme generally is failing to do what it was intended to do, which was to assist the economy in Ireland to grow. It is not growing. In fact, it is in decline, and that programme has to be generally renegotiated. I would suggest in particular that the issues relating to the labour market have to be removed. As has already been stated, the Irish Government, of which my party is a member, has already declared that it will reverse the minimum wage cut as agreed in that programme.
You may be unhappy with that, but that is going to happen. You can be certain as well that your attempt to interfere with the Registered Employment Agreements Act, which has been in place for more than 50 years, will not be interfered with, as you hope, because the current government is determined that social partnership will play its traditional role in ensuring that we have industrial peace and progress."@en1
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