Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

It is fitting that we are debating the Lisbon programme the day after the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has decided to recommend that its constituent unions do not enter negotiations on a new social partnership agreement. This follows the recent decision by the SIPTU conference and a clear upswell of dissatisfaction among union members over the shortcomings of the current deal.

This is relevant to the Lisbon programme because we are witnessing in this State, under the guise of social partnership, the implementation of the very policies that are central to the Lisbon strategy. The key phrase in all of this is competitiveness, a word that can, all too sadly, mean various things. In recent months, however, Irish workers have been left in no doubt what it means for them. Put in its starkest terms, competitiveness means more companies like Gama Construction and Irish Ferries. There are many more like them. Only in the past week I have been advised that a County Cavan employer is replacing local workers with non-nationals. The reason for this is the race to the bottom in which union organisation is destroyed and wages regress to the minimum. Sometimes, as we have seen too often, not even that paltry minimum is being paid by unscrupulous employers.

While Lisbon is dressed up in fancy phrases about business-friendly environments, fully-open internal markets, social inclusion and inclusive labour markets, the bottom line is to improve profitability by reducing labour costs. We are witnessing the creation in this State of large areas of economic activity in which employers are paying people low wages, often in conditions of employment that would not be tolerated by trade unions. Indeed, in areas such as catering and bar work, trade union organisation has been reduced to a minimum, if not eliminated entirely.

One of the main reasons that this holding down of wages is possible is that Irish employers now have access to tens of thousands of non-national workers, mainly from the new EU accession countries of central and eastern Europe, who are paid minimum rates of pay. As we have seen in some publicised instances — no doubt there are many instances which have gone unnoticed — such people are paid even less than the statutory minimum.

Placed against a reluctance — to put it mildly — by member states to ensure the social inclusiveness aspects of Lisbon are implemented, the strategy amounts to little more than facilitating employers in driving down wage rates and undermining workers' organisations. Non-national workers are seen as mobile and dispensable factors of production who are assumed to be content to put up with wages, work conditions, accommodation and general social protections that are unacceptable to existing work forces.

The motivation clearly is not to bring non-national workers up to levels which are admittedly higher in this State than in the EU accession countries, but to bring Irish workers down to a lower level. That is the fear and the perception based on experience. I have just instanced a number of high profile examples. I am aware of similar cases in my constituency and elsewhere where unionised workers are setting their faces against any new social partnership deal that does not take those factors into consideration and which fails to incorporate measures that will guard against the type of abuses seen in Gama Construction, Irish Ferries and elsewhere.

The philosophy behind Lisbon is being used as an excuse to undermine hard-won working conditions and social protections of which we should all be proud. Sinn Féin believes in a Europe in which there is labour mobility, but a Europe in which all EU citizens are brought up to the highest possible standards, rather than one in which the interests of mobile capital are paramount. As currently framed, that is what the Lisbon strategy will mean. We oppose any moves towards privatisation, lower corporation taxes and lower wages in this State. We are certainly not going to lend our support to any strategy that will impose that drift over the entire EU and make it even more difficult for radical and progressive parties and Governments to follow a different course. In conjunction with the Nice treaty and the proposed new constitution, the Lisbon strategy represents another attempt to curtail national sovereignty in the interests of capital.

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