IRELAND NEEDS a growth plan and not further austerity, the EU-IMF-ECB “troika” was told yesterday in Dublin by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
“We desperately need a plan for jobs and growth, an innovative strategy that will help to kick-start an economy that is effectively flat-lining,” Ictu general secretary David Begg said prior to a meeting with troika officials.
“The troika officials cannot ignore the evidence and it is no longer sufficient to administer prescriptions for cuts and ignore the consequences of those cuts.
“This is reaffirmed by the dreadful news from Aviva today and the terrible blow dealt to 950 people and their families. We now have to focus on growth as it presents the only viable escape route from this crisis,” Mr Begg said. He added that a forthcoming pre-budget submission from Ictu would contain “realistic investment proposals that would help create jobs and give people some hope”. Mr Begg said that there was “a serious contradiction” at the heart of the official response to the crisis, at both a national and EU level.
To date it had focused on cutting wages, welfare rates and the living standards of working people. “But the crisis didn’t originate with working people, it originated with private, profit-hungry banks and reckless management.
“Yet there has been precious little focus on reforming the hugely powerful and secretive banking system to ensure that it can never again bring Ireland and Europe to the edge of collapse.
“It seems reform is for the ‘little people’ and that the real source of the problem will remain untouched,” Mr Begg said.
Sources said the troika also met other “financial bodies and stakeholders”.
