Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Trump’s trade tantrum is having a real world impact, just one week after that bizarre event in the White House Rose Garden where an American President held up what looked like a bookmaker’s betting board as he gambled away the world economy in service of his own ego. It is quite bizarre that the country that has done the most to design the current global world economic order is now set on destroying it. The country that has benefited the most from it is upending that very order itself.

It would be comical if it was not so serious. The real world ripples of President Trump’s decisions have already hit our shores at the weekend. The first email I received on Saturday morning was from a Louth-based firm which, last Friday, lost all of its US orders, which that business and its workforce very much depend on. We must remember that this is not about economics, nor is it necessarily about business and trade for President Trump. This is a political project. That is what it is about. It is an ultra-nationalist political project first and foremost. It may well look like, at some point soon, he will be presiding over the ashes of a destroyed US economy and all that entails for the world economy.

Companies the length and breadth of this island which trade into the United States will be facing similar news this week to the news received by that Louth-based company late last week. In the weeks to come, the Government must move to put in place supports that companies like that firm in Louth and hundreds - possibly thousands - of others will need over the next period of time to help us to ride out what we hope will be a short- to medium-term storm.

To that end, the Labour Party and I have been calling for the introduction of a temporary short-term work scheme, an anchor initiative, that will keep workers tied to their employer, avoid redundancies and prevent companies from shutting their doors. The Labour Party and IBEC are on the exact same page in this regard. We are ad idem. However, it seems the Government has, in a rather kneejerk fashion, set its face against it. I suspect this is the case because it raises the spectre of the employment wage subsidy scheme. What we are proposing is very different, however. In my view, that scheme has been deliberately misrepresented by some Government figures in recent times to scare the horses with regard to the scale of resources that needed to be deployed for the wage subsidy scheme with which we are all most recently familiar. The scheme the Labour Party is proposing is built on the principles of the German Kurzarbeit model, which keeps workers close to their employers during periods of uncertainty or turbulence. It would not be paid from common spending but from the Social Insurance Fund and the National Training Fund, both of which the Minister of State will know are in substantial surplus. This is the kind of scheme that prevented workers in Germany from experiencing mass redundancies during the last great recession and ensured hard-won skills were retained in the German economic model. The social and economic cost of job and skills displacement is enormous. There is ongoing and continuous scarring for individuals, communities, families, economies and firms in this regard. We cannot run that risk in the context of what we are about to face.

This is the kind of scheme that, for example, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called for during Brexit. IBEC, as I said, is calling for it now. For years now, it is something the Labour Party has been consistently calling for. In fact, this concept should form a feature of Ireland’s labour market model - full stop - to deal with turbulence and shocks as they arise in a time-limited and targeted fashion. It would support companies impacted by tariffs to hold onto skilled workers as they adapt to changing circumstances and are allowed to be assisted by Enterprise Ireland, for example, to develop new markets. It also protects workers from redundancy with State subsidies and shorter working hours when companies encounter difficulties outside of their control.

I will say one thing that is intrinsic to any scheme the Government may be considering. I notice the Tánaiste has changed his tune somewhat from comments he made last weekend. He seems more open to be persuaded of the merits of a scheme. There should be no subsidies from the State without conditionality. Those kinds of conditions should include a commitment to retain jobs. A good example where a short-term scheme would have made a difference in the last recession is in the construction sector. If we had been able to hold on to more of our skilled construction workers during and after the crash, we would be in a much better position now with the housing crisis.

We will also have to look at how we grow our trade connections with the rest of the world and how we develop new global markets. We all know the reasons that CETA, for example, has been held up. Those issues need to be addressed. We know there are concerns principally in the Minister of State’s own party, Fine Gael, in Fianna Fáil and on the Independent benches about the prospect for certain sectors of the Irish farming community in the context of Mercosur. These are issues the Minister of State will be aware of and issues on which, if we are serious about trade, we need to have an open and frank discussion in this House to address those concerns head on.

If we are to improve our competitiveness, as colleagues said earlier in their comments, we have to address the infrastructural deficits we have, develop our new energy resources with offshore wind, improve our water infrastructure and scale up housing provision and transport investment. I listened to the Taoiseach last week on “Morning Ireland” after I was on that programme myself. He talked about how we all need to do these things. When did this suddenly dawn on the Taoiseach that these are problems for Irish society and our competitiveness? We in the Labour Party have been saying this for years. During the recent election campaign, I said publicly on whatever platform I was provided with that the biggest threat to the Irish foreign direct investment model at that point in time before the election of Donald Trump was the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil government and its re-election. That is a reality. We have not delivered on the infrastructural requirements we need and our society, jobs and businesses are paying the price. We are not prepared to enter into this tumultuous period for our economy. That is on the Minister of State and his colleagues. It is as simple as that.

President Trump is trying to turn the clock back to a golden age that only exists in his own imagination. This is a massive act, in my view, of self-harm against his own people and we are being caught in the crossfire. While it is a time for calm nerves and cool heads, that does not suggest it is a time for inaction or inertia, nor a time for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and their colleagues on the so-called Independent benches to decide to take their concerns out on ordinary working people in Ireland. The view always among some Deputies on the Government benches is that we should not waste the opportunity of a good crisis to drive down the pay of working people and their working terms and conditions.

The Government started this process yesterday when it not only delayed the extension of additional sick pay benefits for Irish workers, but stopped it entirely. Let us not misrepresent this. A commitment was made in various election manifestoes and in the programme for Government to ensure we move towards European norms on sick pay for Irish workers. They are being stopped and next in the firing line will be the national minimum wage. That is what is going to happen. Fianna Fáil has form on this. During the last economic crisis, the first thing the party did was destroy the national minimum wage by reducing it by one hour. There was no economic evidence whatsoever, anywhere in the world, to suggest that this would retain or add a single job and it did not. In my mind, Fianna Fáil will forever be associated with that. This is not a time to be driving down the pay and benefits of working people. At a time when the indigenous Irish economy will require support and when demand in local economies is important, we need to be providing support by ensuring that those who are earning the least are supported by us as best we can.

In the short term, we require a short-term work scheme and a marketing fund for the worst-affected sectors, such as dairy and whiskey. They are out of the firing line at the moment but that may change. We also need a credit guarantee scheme to support affected businesses. We support the motion.

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