Paddy Healy, Seanad Candidate-Policy Position

Tá Leagan Gaeilge faoi bhun an phíosa seo
Paddy Healy, Former President, TUI,
Independent Candidate for Seanad Eireann
Endorsed Irish Nurses and Mid-Wives Organisation (INMO)
Supported by Signatures of 167 Public Servants across all grades!
Tireless Campaigner for Education and Public Services
An Independent Voice for All Public Servants including Teachers, Lecturers, Social Workers, Health Workers, All Administrative and Maintenance Staff , and all Public Service Pensioners as New Government Promises to eliminate 25,000 Jobs
A Voice for Academic Freedom As New Government Reinforces Existing Threats and Department of Education threatens further pay cuts for Lecturers.
A Voice For Post-Doctoral Researchers,Postgrads and Temporary Teachers
A Voice for all employees, the unemployed, Occupational Pensioners and the Needy at Home and Abroad
Tireless Campaigner
Paddy is Chairman of the National Public Service Alliance—an informal alliance of public service trade union activists which is fighting public service pay cuts, pension levy, work overload, staffing moratorium and destruction of conditions of service under the Croke Park Deal
He is Convenor of the Campaign for Academic Freedom which recently held a gathering of 200 academics in the Gresham Hotel to resist threats to academic freedom, permanency and tenure arising out of the implementation of the Croke Park Deal in Third level institutions: The New Government in its programme threatens: “We will introduce radical reform in third level institutions to maximise existing funding, in particular, reform of academic contracts and will encourage greater specialisation by educational institutions.”
He is resisting the imposition of business models on 3rd Level education as proposed in the Hunt Report
He is organising opposition to the shameful treatment of Post-doctoral Researchers in third level institutions and seeking a permanent career structure for researchers and a new deal under which Postgraduate Students carrying out teaching work would get properly paid for each hour worked. He is totally opposed to the attempt to make Student Nurses work for nothing.
He is Chairman of the Campaign to Reverse the Pension Cuts which is organising a legal challenge to the recent public service pension cuts. He is fighting for the removal of the Universal Social Charge which is unfairly reducing private occupational pensions.
He is campaigning against cuts in public services such as health, education and social work and the elimination of jobs under the staffing moratorium.
He is campaigning for the restoration of the full quota of Special Duties and Assistant Principal posts in schools
Job Creation and Investment
He advocates a major programme of state job creation in sophisticated modern industry to employ the 100,000 qualified people who are now on the dole and being forced to emigrate
He is continuing his long standing campaign to increase investment in Education at all levels.
About Paddy Healy
More at http://wp.me/PKzXa-2
Chair National Public Service Alliance, Global Solidarity Champion,
Former President Teachers Union of Ireland(TUI), Lecturer in Physics(retd),
Research Interest: Musical Instrument Acoustics, Former member of
Governing Body and Academic Council DIT,
Ag Freastail ar Daonscoil na Mumhan sa Rinn gach blian,
Former Treasurer Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed(INOU),
Former Executive Member Dublin Council of Trade Unions.
He Lives at Griffith Court, Fairview, D 3 and is a native of Clonmel, Co Tipperary

Radical Change Needed
To make possible the objectives set out above, Fundamental Change is required.
Government Policy
Irish sovereignty must be recovered by facing down the EU and the IMF and insisting on a structured negotiated default under which the debts of banks, then privately owned, would not be paid while rescuing small investors and credit unions. The capitulation of the New Government to the EU/IMF will lead to disaster.
Mortgage Debt on principal domestic residences which was inflated during the property bubble must be reduced. Interest rates must be frozen and the capital sum reduced to current house values. Evictions must be banned.
The 90 Billion lent out recklessly by finance houses since 2003 must be recovered. This can be done by the imposition of a tax on large assets outside the domestic residence and the farm.
Reductions in Social Welfare, and increased taxes on the lowly paid must be reversed.
Cuts in Public services must end now. Cuts in disability services and in Special Needs Provision are particularly reprehensible

Trade Union Reform
The ICTU leadership has failed the members of trade unions. Members of the leadership sat on the Board of the Central Bank and on the the National Social and Economic Council(NESC) and on bodies such as the Board of Fás through the period of reckless borrowing and extreme right-wing policies. Apart from faint bleatings, nobody shouted stop.
Now there are 450,000 people on the dole, one thousand per week emigrating, public service pay and pensions cut, thousands of frontline posts eliminated, massive increase in workload of teachers, lecturers, nurses, other health professionals, social workers and public servants generally, cuts in social welfare benefits etc
No w the, The SIPTU leader who is also ICTU President is reported as having given qualified support to the formation of a FG-LAB coalition whose programme for Government contains a commitment to eliminate 25,000 public service jobs!! “Siptu chief Jack O’Connor claimed the Programme for Government was the best of the alternatives available” Irish Independent 07/03
There has been a total leadership failure in ICTU
The calling off of campaigns and the supine acceptance of cuts and income reductions has disoriented thousands of members.
In my forthcoming book which is available on line at http://wp.me/pKzXa-gw ,I argue for complete renewal of the trade union movement both in its leadership and structures to restore control of the unions to members. This renewal must come from within the movement without legislative interference. The title of the work is : “How ICTU Failed US, the Necessity for Election and Regular Re-Election of General Secretaries.”
Supporters Who Recommend NO 1 Vote for Paddy Healy
I am very grateful to the 167 public servants who are recommending a vote for me to colleagues. I regret that the full list can only be read on my Blog immediately below this post or at:

http://wp.me/pKzXa-gB

All have added their names in a personal capacity
Domhnall Sheridan, Chair Dublin Colleges (DIT) Branch, TUI
Cathleen Bowen, Retired Hospital Manager,
Secretary, Campaign for Reversal of Public Service Pension Cuts, Cork
Ben Bishop Chair Dublin City Post Primary Branch, TUI
Dr Colmán Etchingham, Chair NUI Maynooth Branch
Executive Member, Irish Federation of University Teachers
Prof Vincent Toal, School of Physics, DIT
Oisin Kelly, Former Education Officer, UCD Students Union
Prof Kathleen Lynch, Equality Studies, UCD
John O’Sullivan, Lecturer in Engineering, CIT, Cork
Dr Gordon Dalton, Chair Association of Research Contract Staff, UCC,
President of Irish Research Staff Association.
Sean Connolly,Teacher,Rathmines College of Further Education. Dublin
Professor James Heffron MRIA, Department of Biochemistry, UCC
Prof Tadhg Foley, Emeritus, NUI Galway
Dr. Tony Bonfield, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.
Prof Sean Tobin, Emeritus, NUI Galway
Dr Keith Breen, School of Politics, QUB
Peter Homan,Outreach Worker , South Dublin, HSE
Prof Mary Gallagher, French Studies, UCD
Professor Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Psychology, NUI Maynooth
Andy Storey, Lecturer, School of Politics,UCD,
Chair Action From Ireland (AFRI)
Donnacha O’hEallaithe, Indreabhán, Conamara
Dr Kevin Farrell, Executive Member, TUI
Gerald Brennan, Chairman Cork City Schools, TUI
Barry Williams, Chair, Co Louth Branch, TUI
Manus Brennan, Executive Member, TUI , Donegal Town
Deputy Seamus Healy, TD, South Tipperary
James McMorrow, Co Leitrim Branch Secretary, TUI
Josephine O Donnell, CEO VEC, Co Longford (Retired)
Prof Michael Cronin, DCU
Fergus Hastings, Staff Officer, GISC, Castlebar.
Professor Gary Henehan, Food Science, DIT
John Evoy, Gorey Adult Learning Centre Manager, Co. Wexford VEC
Dr Eabhnat Ní Fhloinn,Director, Maths Centre, DCU
Andy Storey, Lecturer, School of Politics,UCD, Chair AFRI
Kieran Walshe, BoyneBranch, TUI
Oliver McCormack, Teacher (RETD), Tullamore, Co Offally
Dr David O Brien, Lecturer, DIT
Bernie Freeman, Clerical officer, HSe West, Nenagh, Co Tipp
Dr Eilish O’Donohoe, Lecturer in Chemistry, DIT
Aitheasc Seanaid
Paddy Healy, Iar-Uachtarán, Aontas Múinteoirí na hÉireann
Iarrthóir Neamhspleách do Sheanad Éireann
Tacaithe ag Eagras Altraí is Cnáimhseach na hÉireann
Tacaithe ag breis agus 167 Seirbhíseach Poiblí !
Feachtasóir gan Staonadh thar cheann Seirbhísí Oideachais agus Poiblí
Guth Neamhspleách do na Seirbhísigh Phoiblí go léir, ina measc, Múinteoirí, Léachtóirí, Oibrithe Sóisialta, Oibrithe Sláinte, na Baill Fhoirne go léir Riaracháin agus Cothabhála, agus Pinsinéirí go léir na Seirbhíse Poiblí, ag an am cinniúnach seo mar a bhfuil an Rialtas Nua díreach chun 25,000 post a chur ar neamhní
Guth ar son Saoirse Acadúla díreach mar atá an Rialtas Nua ag cur leis na Bagairtí atá ann roimhe seo agus an Roinn Oideachais ag Bagairt Tuilleadh Gearrthacha fós ar phá Léachtóirí
Guth thar cheann Taighdeoirí Iar-Dhochtúireachta agus Iarchéime, agus Múinteoirí Neamh-bhuana
Guth thar cheann na bhFostaithe, na Neamh-Fhostaithe, na bPinsinéirí Ceirde, agus iad sin atá i nGátar anseo in Éirinn agus thar Lear

Feachtasóir gan Staonadh
Is Cathaoirleach é Paddy ar Chomhar Náisiúnta na Seirbhíse Poiblí, ar comhar neamhfhoirmiúil é de ghníomhaithe ceardchumann sa tseirbhís phoiblí atá ag troid i gcoinne raon ábhar – na gearrthacha pá sa tseirbhís, an tobhach pinsin, an forualach oibre, an moratóir ar athsholáthar foirne, agus scrios na gcoinníolacha oibre trí bhíthin shocrú Páirc an Chrócaigh
Is Tionólaí é ar an bhFeachtas faoi Shaoirse Acadúil a raibh tionól de 200 acadóirí san Óstán Gresham, chun na bagairtí ar shaoirse acadúil, ar bhuaine phostanna agus ar shealbhaíocht atá á bhrú ar aghaidh faoi shocrú Páirc an Chrócaigh sna h-institiúidí tríú leibhéal, a chloí. I gclár an Rialtais Nua bagraítear, ‘Tabharfaimíd isteach leasú bunúsach sna h-institiúidí tríú leibhéal chun an t-uasmhéid a bhaint amach leis an maoiniú reatha, agus go príomha, na conarthaí acadúla a leasú agus níos mó speisialtóireachta a spreagadh sna h-institiúidí oideachais’. Tá Paddy ag cur i gcoinne mionsamhlacha gnó a chur i bhfeidhm ar oideachas tríú leibhéal, mar a mholadh i dTuarascáil Hunt.
Tá sé ag eagrú freasúra i gcoinne na mí-úsáide suaraí náirí a riartar ar thaighdeoirí iar-dhochtúireachta sna h-institiúidí tríú leibhéal agus ag iarraidh struchtúr buan slí bheatha a bhunú do thaighdeoirí agus socrú nua ina n-iocfaí i gceart na mic léinn iarchéime a dhéanann obair mhúinteoireachta, agus é sin i gcomhair gach uair oibre. Tá sé lán i gcoinne na hiarrachta atá ar siúl chun na mic léinn altranais a chur ag obair gach phá.
Is Cathaoirleach é ar an bhFeachtas chun an Gearrthacha Pinsin a Chur ar Chúl atá ag eagrú agóide dlíthiúla i gcoinne na ngearrthacha pinsin sa tseirbhís phoiblí a rinneadh le déanaí.
Tá sé ag troid chun an Táille Shóisialta Uilíoch a chur ar cheal, táille a laghdaíonn pinsin phríobháideacha cheirde go héagórach.
Tá sé i mbhun feachtais i gcoinne na ngearrthacha sna seirbhísí poiblí cosúil le sláinte, oideachas agus obair shóisialta, agus cailiúint na bpost sa mhoratóir ar athsholáthar foirne.
Tá sé i mbhun feachtais freisin chun an cion iomlán post dualgas speisialta agus leas-phríomhoide a thabhairt ar ais sna scoileanna.

Cruthú Post agus Infheistíocht
Molann Paddy ollchlár cruthaithe post ag an stát in ard-tionsclaíochtaí nua-aoiseacha a earcódh 100,000 duine cáilithe atá anois ar an dól agus faoi bhrú imeacht ar an mbád bán.
Tá sé ag leanúint lena fheachtas fadtéarmach chun an infheistíocht san Oideachas a mhéadú ag gach leibhéal.

Tá tuilleadh mar gheall ar Paddy Healy ag http://wp.me/PKzXa-2

Supporters Who Recommend A NO 1 Vote for Paddy Healy

” You have to hand it to Paddy Healy who appears to be leading the fight for academic freedom, now under threat from the Croke Park Agreement and the Hunt Report.
Healy, the former TUI president and future Seanad candidate, secured over 150 signatories to a protest letter in this newspaper. The signatories included TCD academic Hugh Gibbons, president of the “rival” Irish Federation of University Teachers.
Healy also organised Saturday’s well-attended protest meeting in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin”.Sean Flynn, Irish Times Jan 11

Supporters Who Recommend NO 1 Vote for Paddy Healy in Seanad Election
I am very grateful to the 150 public servants who are recommending a vote for me to colleagues. I regret that the full list could not be printed on my election literature.
All have added their names in a personal capacity

Domhnall Sheridan, Chair Dublin Colleges (DIT) Branch, TUI
Cathleen Bowen, Retired Hospital Manager, Secretary, Campaign for Reversal of PS Pension Cuts, Cork
Ben Bishop Chair Dublin City Post Primary Branch, TUI
Dr Colmán Etchingham, Chair NUI Maynooth Branch ,Executive Member, Irish Federation of University Teachers
Prof Vincent Toal, School of Physics, DIT
Prof Kathleen Lynch, Equality Studies, UCD
John O’Sullivan, Lecturer in Engineering, CIT, Cork
Dr Gordon Dalton, Chair Association of Research Contract Staff, UCC, President of Irish Research Staff Association.
Sean Connolly,Teacher,Rathmines College of Further Education. Dublin
Professor James Heffron MRIA, Department of Biochemistry, UCC
Prof Tadhg Foley, Emeritus, NUI Galway
Pirooz Daneshmandi, Global Solidarity
Dr. Tony Bonfield, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.
Prof Sean Tobin, Emeritus, NUI Galway
Dr Keith Breen, School of Politics, QUB
Prof Daphne Gilbert, Emeritus, Mathematics, DIT
Peter Homan,Outreach Worker , South Dublin, HSE
Prof Mary Gallagher, French Studies, UCD
Professor Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Psychology, NUI Maynooth
Andy Storey, Lecturer, School of Politics,UCD, Chair Action From Ireland (AFRI)
Donnacha O’hEallaithe, Indreabhán, Conamara
Dr Kevin Farrell, Executive Member, TUI
Gerald Brennan, Chairman Cork City Schools, TUI
Dr. Kevin T. Kelly, Head of Department of Electrical Services, DIT
Barry Williams, Chair, Co Louth Branch, TUI
Manus Brennan, Executive Member, TUI , Donegal Town
Deputy Seamus Healy, TD, South Tipperary
James McMorrow, Co Leitrim Branch Secretary, TUI
Josephine O Donnell, CEO VEC, Co Longford (Retired)
Prof Michael Cronin, DCU
Fergus Hastings, Staff Officer, GISC, Castlebar.
Professor Gary Henehan, Food Science, DIT
John Evoy, Gorey Adult Learning Centre Manager, Co. Wexford VEC
Dr Eabhnat Ní Fhloinn,Director, Maths Centre, DCU
Andy Storey, Lecturer, School of Politics,UCD, Chair AFRI
Kieran Walshe, BoyneBranch, TUI
Oliver McCormack, Teacher (RETD), Tullamore, Co Offally
Dr David O Brien, Lecturer, DIT
Dr Eilish O’Donohoe, Lecturer in Chemistry, DIT
Tom Fennell, lecturer in Marketing (retd.), DIT
Dr Catherine Lowry-O’Neill,Lecturer in Education ,WIT
Pat Ahern, Lecturer in Maths, CIT, Cork
Dr David Meehan, Lecturer,Faculty of Engineering,DIT Bolton Street .
Dr Bridget McAdam-O’Connell, School of Sociology,,UCC
Therese Downes, Counsellor, HSE
Tina MacVeigh, Community Worker, Dublin 8
Denise Dunphy, Lecturer in Media, DIT
Gallagher, Martin , Revenue Comissioners, CPSU
Dr Thomaé Kakouli-Duarte, Lecturer in Biosciences, IT Carlow
Fran Mansfield, Retired, Public Servant
Susan Flannery, Lecturer in Accounting, CIT, Cork
Theo Smith, Porter, St James Hospital
Anne Ryan, Retired Teacher, Mrino College , CDVEC
Mary Brennan,Insurance Manager,HSE
Dr Peadar O’Grady, Consultant Child Psychiatrist.
Joseph O’Donnell, TUI, Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Dr Louis Armstrong, Head of School of Biological Sciences, DIT
Dr Juliet Bressan,Addiction Services,Best Selling Author ,HSE
Bernadette Mooney,IT Professional,HSE
Rita O’Neill,National Education Welfare Board
Domhnall Sheridan, Chair, Dublin Colleges Branch TUI
Siobhán Healy, Dietician, Tallaght Hospital
Anne O Donnell, Maths Teacher (Retired)
Anne-Michelle Healy , Librarian, Dun Laoire/ Rathdown Co council
Ella Darcy, Open Farm, Pallas Hill Drombane Co Tipp
Billy Darcy, Teagasc Adviser, (Retired), Pallas Hill , Drumbane , Co Tipp
Aisling Healy, Muinteoir Gaeilge, Clochar na Trocaire, Carraig nu Súire
Johnny McCarthy, Lecturer in Music, CIT Cork School of Music
Camillus Healy, EMTA (retired), HSE, Clonmel
Kevin Hurley, UCD (retired)
Dr BrianMurray, Lecturer of Chemistry, IT Tallaght
Dr Barbara BradbyDepartment of Sociology, Trinity College
Theresa Urbainczyk, Associate Professor, Classics, University College Dublin
Marie Humphrys, Vice Chair, Dublin City post primary Branch TUI
Thomond Coogan, Administrator, Adult Education, UCD, Dublin
Dr Sarah Alyn Stacey, Senior Lecturer, FTCD,French Department,Trinity College
Jim Darcy, Croke Park, Cumann Lúth-Chleas Gael
Liz Farrell Chair, Co Carlow Branch, TUI
Dr Paul O’Brien,Lecturer,Faculty of Visual Culture,NCAD
Oliver McCormack, Teacher of Mathematics(RETD), Tullamore, Co Offally
Owen McCormack CIE worker, Trade union activist.
Eimear Finnegan,Social Worker, HSE, Swords
Siofra Pierse, Lecturer in French, UCD
ProfessorDiane Negra, Film Studies, UCD
Barry Mc Intyre , Sec IADT Branch ,TUI
Anne-Marie Luby, Principal,TUI, Killybeggs, Co Donegal
Pat Fleming, Co. Carlow TUI.
Caroline Brady,Administrator,Vice-President for Students, Tierney Building, UCD
Patsi Lynch, Retired, HSE, Kilkenny
Pat Corcoran, Anti Cuts and Anti War Activist.
Prof Liam Breatnach , School of Celtic Studies, DI
Camillus Healy, EMTA (retired), HSE, Clonmel
Nuala Buckley, Retired Sec Teacher, Inniscarra, Cork
Anne Ryan, Retired Teacher, Marino College , CDVEC
Ben Bishop Chair Dublin City Post Primary branch, TUI
Mary Bushe, Technical Officer – Assessment Unit, UCD, Dublin
Dr Leonie Duignan, School of Celtic Studies, NUI Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Dr Judith Devlin , Lecturer in History, UCD
Dr Bridget McAdam-O’Connell, School of Sociology,,UCC
Dr Jürgen Uhlich, Department of Irish and Celtic languages,Trinity College
DR Veronica O’Dwyer, Lecturer, DIT, Dublin
Antaine Ó Faracháin, Leachtoir i nGaeilge, DIT
Dr Wolfgang Marx , lecturer in Music,
Prof. Pat Goodman Lecturer/researcher DIT
Piaras Mac Éinrí, Department of Geography, UCC.
Dr Bernadette Flanagan,Head of Research, All Hallows (DCU),
Dr. Kevin Farrell, Member of the National Executive, TUI
Dore Fischer, Lecturer, Dublin Institute of Technology.
Mike FitzGibbon, Lecturer, UCC
Patty Gray, Lecturer in anthropology, NUIM
Enda Murphy , Lecturer in Geography, UCD
Professor Jim McKernan, College Of Education, University of East Carolina.
Martin Marjoram, Lecturer, Branch Chair of IT Tallaght TUI
Domhnall Sheridan, Branch Chair, Dublin Colleges(DIT) Branch TUI
Dr Michael Carr, Vice Chair, Dublin Colleges (DIT) Branch TUI
Emer McGann, Assistant Lecturer, ITCarlow.
Seán L’Estrange, Lecturer in Sociology, University College Dublin
Profesor Joe Cleary, ,School of English, NUIM
Dr Paula Gilligan, IADT, Dun Laoire
Jacqui O’Riordan, Lecturer, University College Cork
Prof Michael Cronin, DCU
Helen Lambkin , Lecturer in Biology,DIT
Dr Alan Grossman, Lecturer, Dublin Insitute of Technology.
An t-Ollamh Matthew Hussey, emeritus, DIT, Baile Átha Cliath.
Dr Ciaran Taylor, Lecturer of Mathematics, IT Tallaght
Dara McHugh, Lecturer, IT Carlow
Dr Mary Roche,Department of Geography , UCC
Patrick Mansfield , Lecturer in Computing(Retired), IT Tallaght
Phyllis Prendergast,Assistant Staff Officer,DIT
Denise McDonnell, Senior Executive Assistant, UCD.
Dr Dominic Dillane, Lecturer in Statistics, DIT
Orla Cosgrave,(Ex Hr Manager) , University College Dublin
Margaret O’Sullivan Farrell, Lecturer in Music, DIT, Dublin City
Dr James Walsh,School of Physics,DIT
Fran Mansfield, Dublin Tourism (Retired)
Dr Ronnie Moore ,Lecturer ,UCD
Dr Joseph Power,Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, WIT
Gerald Morgan [gmorgan1066@gmail.com]
Dr F.M. Lyng,Radiation and Environmental Science Centre,Focas Institute, DIT
Aiden Bell,Lecturer Maths and Information Technology, IT Sligo

Dr. Sharae Deckard, Lecturer, School of English. UCD
Prof. John Cassidy, FRSC, Assistant Head of School,
School of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences,
O’Mahony, Patrick [P.OMahony@ucc.ie]
Hugh O’Reilly,Clerical Officer,Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food,Clonakilty,
Thomas Power, FHEA, MBS (Finance), B.A.(Hons), Grad.Dip.Env.MGT.Lecturer, DIT
Sinead Dore,teacher,Co Leitrim TUI
Paul Kinsella, Clerical Officer, GPO, Dublin.
Leon Conway, Lecturer,Centre for Film Studies,UCD
Mary Flood , Executive Assistant, School of Agriculture, UCD i
DR Cora Stack.Lecturer, It Tallaght
Dr Iain Atack,Lecturer,International Peace Studies, TCD
Eileen Doran,Lecturer, School of Business, DIT.
Dr. Féilim Ó hAdhmaill,School of Applied Social Studies,U.C.C.
David Cotter, Clerical Officer, South Dublin County Council.
Detta Dickinson Department of Mathematics,NUIM
Brian Mcnally [brian.mcnally@dit.ie]
Patrick Kelly Lecturer IT Carlow.
Dr Jesus Maria Frias Celayeta, Acting Head of Department of Food Science, DIT
Martin O’Grady, Lecturer in Psychology, Institute of Technology, Tralee.
Jan Pettersen, Lecturer, DIT, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
Simon Quinn,Lecturer in Accounting & Finance, IT Tralee
Gerry Connell,Lecturer in Culinary Arts,DIT
N Lynch, Co Cavan VEC ,Past Chair of TUI Cavan
Anne Ó Ruairc, ,Lecturer, Department of Health and Science,IT Carlow,
Con Doran, Lecturer, IT Carlow
Fiona Broderick, – Lecturer of Languages , IT Tallaght
Michael O Brien. Teacher, Vocational Sector. Wexford
Dr Peter Herrmann ,Lecturer in Social Policy,UCC
Pat Ahern, Lecturer in Mathematics, CIT, Cork
Dr Diog O’Connell, Lecturer, IADT,Dún laoire
Dr Alice Feldman, sociology, UCD
Debra Laefer, Lecturer, Civil Engineering, UCD, Dublin
Bernie Sherlock, Lecturer in Music, DIT
Marie Guilfoyle, Lecturer in Languages(Retired), DIT
Fergal Greene,Teacher,Clondalkin,Dublin 22
Liam Murphy, Lecturer, DIT, Dublin 8
Arthur Henry, Lecturer, DIT Bolton Street, Dublin
Niall Coakley, Lecturer in Electronic Engineering, DIT
Joe Kellegher, Lecturer in Electronic Engineering, DIT.
Ailish O’ Brien Lecturer IT Carlow
Áine O Neill, Lecturer, IT Carlow

How ICTU Failed US:For Election,Re-Election of General Secretaries

For Democratic Reform of Unions by Members from Within!
No Legislative Interference!
Introduction

The ongoing destruction of conditions of service established over decades under the Croke Park Deal threatens the very survival of trade unions.Now the ICTU President is reported as giving “qualified support” to the formation a new government which is committed to eliminating 25,000 public service jobs. Blair Horan,CPSU General Secretary and member of the Executive Council of ICTU, also spoke in favour of the Programme for Government on behalf of a branch of the Labour Party. Clerical officers represented by CPSU will be a key target for job elimination with consequent work overload for those remaining.
Will hundreds of thousands of members continue to pay dues to a body which has failed to protect them from pay cuts, “pension” levy, recruitment moratorium and which even offered up their existing conditions of service to government in December 2009? The answer is: not for very long unless there are major changes! One leading public service trade unionist has described the Croke Park Deal as “a suicide note by trade unions” .

The Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland has responsibility for ensuring prudence in banking. The Irish Banks borrowed and lent in recent years in a manner that has led to effective national bankruptcy. The General Secretary of ICTU, David Begg was a director or board member of the Central Bank for 15 years up to the middle of 2010. The General Secretary and the Executive Council of ICTU which he serves have a case to answer. The facts are set out here.
Social Partnership in recent has underpinned a systematic government policy of undermining the tax base through concessions to the super-rich and increased dependence on unstable transactional taxes based on a construction bubble. By their actions, ICTU leaders supported this neo-liberal policy despite the verbal warnings issued by it from time to time.
These policies pursued by trade union leaders preceded their historic capitulation in the Croke Park Deal and abject failure to protect members from recent budgets which heaped the burdens of recession on low and middle incomes and protected the rich.

At a minimum the general Secretary of ICTU, David Begg and ICTU President, Jack O’Connor should resign. Their track record undermines the ability of the trade union movement to lead a fight back against the impoverishment of members and of the majority of the population not to speak of the national humiliation and subordination to the international financiers represented by the IMF and the EU.

This pamphlet is based on a discussion which took place at the National Public Service Alliance meeting held in Teachers Club on Monday Nov 1. Material supporting the points made has been added by the author.
Among the conclusions drawn was that the contractual position of General Secretary must be fundamentally altered to provide for election, regular re-election and democratic removal from office for failure to pursue agreed union policy. This must be addressed immediately through rule changes at national trade union conferences. Other conclusions are also outlined at the end of this pamphlet.

The pamphlet gives examples of the many remunerations and funded trips abroad available to serving and retired trade union leaders arising out of appointments to public service posts and nomination to public boards by government. The number and extent of the rewards involved have hugely increased under “social partnership”.
The dependence of trade union officialdom on continued government agreement to Deduction at Source arrangements and on government funding of internal union education activities under “partnership” is discussed.

Is remaining within partnership arrangements irrespective of the policies and actions of government against members the over-riding principle determining the approach of the caste of general secretaries who control the trade union movement? Readers will be in a position to give an answer to this question after reading this book.

The unions affiliated to ICTU represent over 600,000 members in Ireland. It is by far the biggest civil society group in the country. Despite recent reverses, it has the potential to wield devastating power in resisting employers and governments acting for the wealthy. Such action was never more necessary as government and opposition agree to intensify the process of loading the problems arising from the delinquency of the rich and of the government on the poor and middle income earners. This is being done with the full backing of the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission. For example, the success of the recent Claiming our Future initiative is heavily dependent on the restoration of trade unions as accountable fighting organisations free of dependence on government.

The abject failure of the leadership of Irish trade unions, which essentially resides in general secretaries, to protect the pay and working conditions of members, the level of welfare benefits and public services provision, is outlined and discussed.

Recent Major Retreats by General Secretaries (ICTU)

• Refusal to offer any significant resistance other than verbal opposition to removal of the Christmas bonus and the imposition of benefit reductions on social welfare recipients by government

• Support for neo-liberal or Thatcherite government policies through “social partnership” which led to an economic collapse throwing an additional 350,000 out of work and forcing tens of thousands to emigrate

• Consenting to a recruitment ban or moratorium which is devastating public services including health, education, social care and many other essential services

• Acquiescing to cuts in public service pay

• Acquiescing to a “pension levy” on all public servants which is a selective and discriminatory tax

• Offering huge worsening of conditions of service of public servants and “temporary” pay cuts for all public servants to Government in December 2009, in return for government agreement to make pay cuts “temporary”.

• Conceding the right to government (for the first time in Ireland and the UK) to make permanent public servants redundant in talks leading to Croke Park Deal

• Calling off the campaign of stoppages and demonstrations in support of ICTU Economic and Social policy- “There is a Better Fairer Way” before entering into negotiations that led to the “Croke Park Deal”

• After Budget 2011, acquiescing to cuts in public service pensions, a reduction in pay and huge worsening of pensions of incoming public servants, reductions in social welfare payments and increased taxation of low and middle incomes.

Letter by Shay Cody —Chair Public Services Committee ICTU and Gen Sec IMPACT to Dail Deputies

The above series of events represents a historic retreat by the caste of general secretaries and senior full-time officials which form the executive council of ICTU and its Public Services Negotiating Committee. Shay Cody, successor to Peter McClune as General Secretary of the biggest public service union IMPACT recently (Nov 2010) wrote a letter to Dail deputies. Shay Cody is also Chair of the Public Services Committee of ICTU. The content of the letter is indicative of the extent of the retreat which the IMPACT leadership is willing to countenance.

Date 17 November 2010 18:25
Subject Croke Park Agreement
Dear Deputy,
I am writing as general secretary of Ireland’s largest public service trade union to briefly update you on the ongoing implementation of the Croke Park agreement and related reforms, which are essential to help meet the challenges currently facing Ireland.
You may be aware that the Minister for Finance recently met officers of the ICTU Public Services Committee and confirmed that the Government remains committed to the agreement, on the understanding that it will quickly deliver substantial savings and reforms. Leaders of the main opposition parties have also given public support to the agreement on the understanding that it will deliver substantial savings and reforms.
On foot of this, union representatives on the Croke Park national implementation body, including myself, have continued to press management for tangible proposals that either:
• Produce savings
• Avoid future costs
• Bring service improvements and/or
• Deliver quantifiable efficiency improvements.

Departmental action plans for reform, which are required under the agreement, have now been produced across the public service and these include real measures that will deliver savings or maintain services as substantial savings are made though the public service recruitment moratorium and other staff reductions.
I have personally pressed management very hard to ensure that the agreement is implemented quickly, effectively and transparently to deliver the savings necessary to avoid further cuts in public service pay and to ensure that the agreed reforms deliver on the objective of protecting and prioritising services as budgets and staffing levels continue to fall. The staff redeployment measures agreed under Croke Park are particularly significant in this regard.
As well as the pay cuts of 2009 and 2010, big ticket changes that will produce huge savings have so far included:
• Staff reductions of over 11,000 in the last 18 months with more to come
• The newly-announced scheme to reduce health staff numbers by 5,000 through voluntary redundancies
• The abolition of 25 agencies, with more to come
• A halving in the number of VECs
• The introduction of new pension arrangements for new recruits to the public service
• The implementation of other changes put forward in sectoral action plans, which will collectively result in very significant changes.

None of these measures has so far led to significant reductions in service provision.
I would be happy to give you more detailed information on the ongoing implementation of the Croke Park agreement, or to respond to your specific questions on related developments. You can contact me by emailing Bernard Harbor at bharbor@impact.ie.
Yours sincerely
Seamus Cody
General Secretary
IMPACT trade union
Hard pressed public servants including hospital staff will find the statement by Cody “None of these measures has so far led to significant reductions in service provision” absolutely astounding.

There is a Trident Consultancy Report to the three teaching unions which analyses the proposed Pension Scheme for New Entrants to the Public Service which is included in “big ticket changes that will produce huge savings” mentioned by Shay Cody in his letter. The Report concludes that the return from the compulsory pension scheme will be less than the employee contribution unless the pensioner lives beyond 95 years. In effect there will be no employer contribution, a circumstance which is contrary to law in private sector pensions. Incidentally, there will be no savings for government for 47 years when the pensions are due to be paid.

Clearly the IMPACT leader has agreed to this outrageous scheme.
After Budget 2011
I have distributed the Email message below to activists in the National Public Services Alliance 14/12/2010: Subject: ICTU, Most Unions silent on Pension Cut

Only IFUT and TUI proposed doing anything about Public Sector Pension Cuts. INTO and INMO mentioned the cuts in statements. There was no mention of the cuts on Websites of the following bodies: ICTU, SIPTU, ASTI, CPSU, PSEU, IMPACT.
While INTO, ASTI, TUI are running a campaign against the pension rip-off of new public servants announced in the Budget, there is no mention of this issue by the silent unions above.
It is believed that ICTU has refused to oppose the new “pension Scheme” which is in effect a tax because the individual gets less out than was contributed unless he/she lives to 95 (Trident Report to Teaching Unions).
There is no proposal by any union to do anything about the pay cut for new entrants to the public service. This decision breaches a whole range of existing industrial relations agreements and agreed circular letters.
Was there a Secret Deal between Government and the General Secretaries Group called ICTU?
It is already widely believed that the government intends to take our conditions of service under the Croke Park Deal and to cut our pay again when this process is completed. The Review of the Croke Park Deal in conjunction with IMF/EU in 9 months time which was recently announced lends credence to this belief.
Minister Lenihan met an ICTU delegation before the Budget. He assured them that there would not be a new cut in public service pay in the budget.
Was there a quid pro quo? Did ICTU agree a whole range of “savings” at the expense of public servants. No action of any kind was proposed at the mass demonstration sponsored by ICTU (before budget)
In addition to the matters mentioned above several other budgetary measures reduced the public service pay bill as I pointed out- –

There was much protestation by ICTU against the cut in the minimum wage and Claiming our Future organised a petition against it. But ICTU has made no proposal to oppose it through any form of industrial action. A proposal by UNITE The UNION for a campaign of industrial action against the budget was sidelined by the ICTU executive council.

No general secretary has sought to effectively and persistently oppose the range of concessions by ICTU outlined above.
This suggests that the fundamental problem is not one of individual leaders, however compliant or determined they may be in representing members. It resides in the current role of general secretaries in individual unions and the related composition of the executive council of ICTU. Members, through ballots, through national congresses, through election of executive members, have negligible effective control over general secretaries for reasons outlined further on in this document.

Some of the items in the bullet points above need further elaboration. This is particularly so as ICTU leaders have recently attempted to disclaim any responsibility for the current economic collapse.
ICTU “explanations” are carried below.

ICTU Defends its Record

Firstly, we read the following in the recent ICTU pre-budget submission:
“Congress in Social Partnership, Not in Government” ( ICTU Pre-Budget Submission, Autumn2010)
“Some people seem to really believe that Congress, as one of the Social Partners in Ireland, is actually part of the Government. Thus they think Congress sets policy and so we must share in the blame for the bust. Not so. Congress makes submissions to Government and discusses them with officials.”

Contribution of SIPTU President, Jack O’Connor can be heard in full on the ICTU Website as he chaired the Lord Skidelsky lecture. Click here http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10161557#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=deniedbyhost&medium=10161557
Or http://www.ictu.ie/

David Begg, ICTU General Secretary, made his contribution at the TASC Conference which was covered in Irish Times on Monday October 25 by Reporter Marie O’Halloran. Click here http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1025/1224281952146.html

Jack O’Connor said that the mistake that was made was to give members to understand that election outcomes could be balanced by social partnership. The unions did not do enough to ensure that “the best Minister for Finance in the history of the state, Rory Quinn”, remained in power. The clear implication was that there was nothing wrong with social partnership itself either in conception or content.

David Begg blamed the people not the General Secretaries.
“Irish people are not the same as French people,” he said. “Irish people are much more conservative. Social democracy has never taken root in Ireland.”
He said “most Irish workers would not thank me for creating havoc in Ireland as they would see it.”
It was “absolutely important for any trade union movement, if it purports to lead social movements, to align itself as far as it can with what the people of the country are willing to do.”
He said if trade unions pushed “what is perceived by the population to be a narrow class interest beyond what is good for the whole population, what you will create is a fascist backlash”.-Irish Times, Monday, October 25

ICTU and the Central Bank

“In domestic legislation the legal basis for the role of the CBFSAI (Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland)in this field (in addition to the Eurosystemderivedrole) is set out in the Central Bank Act, 1997:Part II — Regulation of Payment Systems. In addition,Section 7 of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Act, 2003 includes the objective of ‘‘promoting the efficient and effective operation of payment and settlement systems’’.————————————-
At a domestic level, regulation (or ‘oversight’) of payment systems is principally aimed at promoting the orderly functioning of such systems, thereby minimising systemic risk in order to protect the banking system as a whole from the possible ‘domino effects’ that could occur if one or more of the credit institutions participating in a payment system were to encounter credit or liquidity problems.” Paul O Brien, Deputy Head of Payments & Securities Settlements Department, Central Bank, Financial Stability Report 2004

ICTU General Secretary, David Begg was a director and member of the board of the Central Bank from 12/05/95 until recent months (2010), a period of 15years. His tenure covered the period between 2003 and 2008 when that body allowed banks to borrow huge sums abroad which have now led to the insolvency of all major banks.

Before he became governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan in Economic and Social Review (Summer 2009) said:“Irish banking system had been, in effect, on a life-support system since September 2008.—-.Complacency resulted in the banks fuelling the late stage of an obvious construction bubble with massive foreign borrowing, leaving them exposed to solvency and liquidity risks which in past times would have been inconceivable–At the end of 2003, net indebtedness of Irish banks to the rest of the world was just 10 per cent of GDP. By early 2008 that had jumped to over 60 per cent”

In the 2007 report, issued at year end, the then governor, John Hurley said in his foreword: “However,Irish banks have negligible exposure to the sub-prime sector and they remain relatively healthy by the standard measures of capital, profitability and asset quality. This has been confirmed by the stress testing exercises we have carried out with the banks”. Begg did not issue a dissenting minority report. We are unaware of any explanation by David Begg or by the Executive Council of ICTU which he serves. He has recently(2010) been replaced on the Board of the Central Bank by Des Geraghty, former General President of SIPTU.

Extracts from recent Central Bank Reports are carried below. The report issued at end 2007 has particular relevance due to its proximity to the emergence of the banking crisis.
Central Bank Report 2009–Extracts

“The Board has overall responsibility for the system of internal financial control in the Bank, which is
designed to safeguard the assets of the Bank and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities.
To discharge this responsibility, the Board has established an appropriate organisational structure.
In this regard, the Audit Committee of the Board meets periodically with the Internal and External
Auditors and members of the Management of the Bank to discuss control issues, financial reporting
and related matters. The Internal and External Auditors have full access to the Audit Committee.”

————————————————————————————–

Membership
Audit Committee/Audit and Risk Management Committee 2009
David Begg (Chair), Alan Gray, Deirdre Purcell,
Gerard Danaher, Alan Ashe.
————————————————————————————-

Extracts From Central Bank Report 2007
The of the Board as at 30 April
Governor’s Foreword

The Irish financial sector was, of course, impacted like all others by these global developments. Medium- to long-term funding was not as readily available on wholesale markets as had been the case. However,
Irish banks have negligible exposure to the sub-prime sector and they remain relatively healthy by the standard measures of capital,profitability and asset quality. This has been confirmed by the stress testing exercises we have carried out with the banks.—–

I would like to thank Patrick Neary, Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator and all his team for their ongoing cooperation and support.
Finally, I pay special tribute to all the management and staff of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland for rising to, and meeting, the challenging times we faced in 2007.
John Hurley
Governor
(Financial Regulator, Patrick Neary has recently (2009) taken early retirement.—“ In recent months, he had come under heavy fire for not stress-testing the banking sector hard enough, downplaying the risk of rising bad debts on substantial property loans and, most recently, his handling of the directors’ loans controversy at Anglo Irish Bank.”-Irish Times, January 10, 2010)
——————————————

“Stress-Tests of the Domestic Banking Sector
A key tool used to inform our assessment of the strength of the banking system is
stress testing, whereby banks assess their resilience to plausible, but extreme,
economic scenarios. During the year, the Bank continued to develop its stress testing
procedures and participated in two Eurosystem task forces on stress
testing. This afforded an opportunity to benchmark our approach in this area
against methodologies used internationally. The results of a ‘top-down’ stress test
were published in the Financial Stability Report 2007. The results of that exercise,
notwithstanding some important caveats,suggested that the banking sector’s shock
absorption capacity remains strong.”—John Hurley, Governor
————————————————————————————————
Membership
Audit Committee 2007
David Begg (Chair), Martin
O’Donoghue, Deirdre Purcell*,Alan Ashe**
————————————————————————-
“The Internal Audit Department independently and systematically reviews the controls in place and reports
to the Board Audit Committee on a regular basis. The Audit Committee approves the Internal Audit Plan
and work programme. In addition, the Audit Committee meets with and receives reports from both external
auditors. The Chairman of the Audit Committee reports to the Board on all significant issues considered by the Committee and the minutes of meetings of the Audit Committee are circulated to the Board for consideration at subsequent meetings of the Board.
The Board-level Committee structures have been designed so that the Board and the Irish Financial
Services Regulatory Authority work closely together to ensure that their respective obligations in relation to the control of expenditure and the management of operational risk are managed within a consistent and complete framework.
I can confirm that the Board reviewed the effectiveness of the system of internal financial controls during the year ended 31 December 2007.”
John Hurley, Governor David Begg, Director 17 June 2008
SOCIAL WELFARE CUTS
On simple grounds of human solidarity it was most regrettable that ICTU did not launch a huge campaign of resistance to such cuts. In addition, it was clear that increasing numbers of union members were being thrown out of work and would be subjected to such cuts.
Cuts in social welfare undermine wages as impoverished workers are forced to accept work at low rates. This is one of the reasons why trade unions have traditionally opposed lowering of welfare rates. How could trade unions appeal to the public to defend their members against pay cuts if the poorest of the poor were being cut?
The abolition of the Christmas bonus had been announced in summer 2009. It was an open secret that cuts in social welfare were due in the budget. The neglect of the trade union leaders on this issue had a direct effect on the ability of the government to impose direct pay cuts on public servants. When trade union leaders offered “temporary pay cuts” in December 2009, there was unrest among Fianna Fail backbenchers. This was mainly because they had been told by Ministers that there would be permanent cuts in social welfare rates in the budget due within days. How could they defend the welfare cuts to constituents if public service pay was not to suffer similar cuts? This facilitated the Government in rejecting the capitulatory offer by union leaders of “temporary pay cuts” and the four sectoral documents containing huge worsening of conditions of service of public servants. ( see PETER McLOONE , Chairperson Public Services Committee, ICTU, IrishTimes,Tue, Dec 08, 2009)
The government promptly pocketed the worsening of conditions offer to pick it up later in Croke Park Deal and made straight cuts in public service pay. The government was cheered on by employer bodies and the very rich as these cuts made it easier to cut pay in the private sector. (The recent Labour Court recommendation that statutory minimum pay rates in the construction sector be reduced is a direct result.) How could experienced negotiators on the trade union side allow themselves to be trapped like this? If it was their own pay and conditions they were negotiating, would they fall into such a trap? They wished to stay in a partnership type relationship with government. They knew that they could evade accountability for their actions and unfortunately they were right.

ICTU “Not Responsible” For False Boom and Real Bust?
Statements by ICTU leaders including the statement that they were in “partnership not in government” are carried above. ICTU can also point to various warnings by ICTU to government about the dangers of the property bubble and other aspects of government policy.
The important thing is what the ICTU did, not what it said. Like politicians, trade union leaders have become adept at “spinning” words to cover their tracks.
Social Partnership Agreements were not merely about pay. They were agreements on general economic and social policy. The Towards 2016 Agreement concluded in 2006 at the height of the false boom was such a strategic plan for ten years. The actions to be taken under the Agreement were:
“With monetary policy set by the European Central Bank, macroeconomic policy is now essentially concerned with management of the public finances, incomes policy and structural reform. The key principles referred to, particularly sustainability and prudent fiscal policy, will guide the management of the public finances.
The following strategies will be pursued within the Government’s budgetary and economic framework:
A Fiscal Policy which will provide sufficient room for manoeuvre to meet our obligations in the event of an economic downturn;
Page 5
Government capital investment ratio in the order of 5% of GNP, to provide the level of investment required to tackle the economy’s infrastructural deficit;
Taxation Policy designed to maintain and strengthen the competitive position of the economy, foster improvements in productive capacity, economic and social development, and equity, while maintaining a sound fiscal stance. The Government will seek to maintain a tax policy at EU level that fosters economic growth and employment, without the requirement of tax harmonisation at all levels;
A Public expenditure profile that reflects the growth in the economy, provides for investment in a sustainable way in public services, and a public expenditure allocation and management system that optimises value for money, including implementation of public procurement reforms.” T2016.pdf (ICTU Website)

Clearly the actions above were actions of government to which ICTU was assenting for ten years.
The sections were drafted to include words which IBEC, ICTU and Government could “spin” to their respective audiences.
For example fostering “equity” in taxation is buried in the middle of the Taxation Policy action. This would serve to verbally cover the rear end of the General Secretaries. The reality was that the government was making huge tax concessions to the rich and pursuing a fiscal policy of undermining the reliable income tax base and replacing the shortfall with unstable transactional taxes on house sales. It is ironic to note the agreed action: “A Fiscal Policy which will provide sufficient room for manoeuvre to meet our obligations in the event of an economic downturn” in the light of the recent fiscal collapse.

The absence of an insistence on specific changes in fiscal policy by ICTU means that it was assenting to a continuation of the neo-liberal or Thatcherite policy that led to the bust. The income gap between rich and poor in Ireland was among the worst in the world. Yet there is not a specific measure by taxation or otherwise to address this matter. PD ministers McDowell and Harney were openly lauding the concept of income inequality to foster enterprise.
Clearly the agreement to foster tax equity was totally hypocritical on all sides and the commitment was akin to the charity that covereth a multitude of sins.
In the context of government practice at the time, it is clear ICTU assented in practice to the totally neo-liberal right wing government policy of the day. The failure of David Begg, then on the board of the Central Bank, to blow the whistle on the grossly excessive borrowing by banks which was being permitted by the Central Bank must be seen in this context.

National Economic and Social Council (NESC)
This partnership body provides research and analysis which underpins partnership agreements. At the height of the false boom in 2006, current ICTU president Jack O’Connor and the ICTU general secretary were on the council together with their economic advisers. There was no mention in the Report of the NESC (2006) of over-borrowing by banks though ICTU, Business and the Department of Finance are represented on the board of the Central Bank as well as on the NESC. Though the report did point to risks arising from a downturn in house prices and an international economic downturn, the overall prognosis for the economy was positive.

In Chapter 1 of the Report, it is stated: “The public finances are in a healthy position. The slowdown in the growth of current public expenditure that occurred was consistent with the recommendations of the Council. However, the reductions in public capital expenditure in 2003 and 2004 differed from what was recommended by the Council. These cuts will be partially reversed with the large budgeted increase in expenditure in 2005.”
In fact the tax base had been undermined over the years by concessions to the rich and revenue was unduly dependent on transactional property taxes such as stamp duty. The public finances were “an accident waiting to happen”. Yet the trade union leaders assented to this Report. There was no dire warning about imminent collapse in banking and public finances. Indeed government was entitled to conclude that its economic policy had been endorsed by the social partners. The government through several General Secretaries of departments of state, who sit on the NESC, assented to the Report together with the ICTU leaders. (Incidentally, the professors of the state economic research agency, ESRI, also assented to the Report!!)
ICTU Pre-Budget Submission (2011)
Some aspects of the current ICTU pre-budget submission are very useful(Pre-budget submission, ICTU website). It is shown in the submission that income inequality Ireland is worse than in 21 of the 30 OECD countries and also: “ Irish earnings, wage rates and salaries are still below those in most competitor countries.2 The total cost of employing workers in Ireland is well below the cost in nearly all developed competitor countries. Total labour costs in Ireland are 22nd lowest out of 30 OECD developed countries.3 ——However, it is seldom mentioned that Ireland’s productivity — was 2nd highest in the world after Norway and ahead of the US in 2006 and will still be close to the top performers. Even adjusting for Transfer Price Fixing by multinationals, it will still be in the top 10 countries in the world.
Total current public expenditure in Ireland– was cut from 40.2% of GDP back in 1994 to 30.2% in 2007, according to the EU Commission. The average in Europe also fell in the EU 15 from 46.2% in 1994 to 42.5% – a drop of almost 4%.
So was Irish day to day spending “out of control”? The answer is no.
Further, according to the European Commission, “Final consumption expenditure by general government” in Ireland is much lower than in most other EU states. In 2007, it was 16% of GDP compared to 23.1 in France, 25.1 in the Netherlands, 22.2% in Belgium or 20.5 in EU15 and the same in EU27. So the evidence is that IRISH PUBLIC SPENDING IS LOW compared to other countries in Europe. It is at the same level as the US by this criterion—
Indeed, the Commission on Taxation report contains a table (page 54) outlining just how unequal income distribution is. And this is based only on disclosed income. It shows that 8500 persons or ‘tax units’ earned over €275,000 in 2006 – a total of €5.8bn. On this total they paid just €1.9bn in tax on income. Indeed the combined income of these high-earners equalled that of 165,000 earners further down the earnings scale.”

While this information is useful, it does not occur to ICTU that the existence of gross income inequality, hugely inequitable taxation and low wages is an indication of abject failure of the ICTU approach after 23 years of so-called social partnership!!!
The collapse of state finances and the banking system merely confirms this failure

The Perks of Social Partnership
Recent hearings before the Public Accounts Committee have highlighted mismanagement and “junketing” at FAS and the unbelievable story of the National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund to which large lodgements were made by HSE and Local Authorities. Though two prominent SIPTU members were signatories to the account, SIPTU has stated that it had no knowledge of the fund. It is alleged that 31 foreign trips in which union officials and state officials participated were financed from the fund. The hearings continue. One of the Reports of the PAC Hearings which appeared in the Irish Times is worth reading in full
Public money controlled by Siptu officials funded 31 trips
COLM KEENA, Irish Times Fri, Oct 08, 2010
OVERSEAS TRAVEL: PUBLIC MONEY controlled by two senior Siptu officials was used to pay for at least 31 foreign trips over the past six years, the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts heard yesterday.
An inquiry by HSE auditor Dr Geraldine Smith has resulted in 29 people being identified as having gone on 31 trips, some of them on multiple occasions. The people involved are civil and public servants and trade union officials.
Dr Smith said that because the fund controlled by Matt Merrigan and Jack Kelly was used for the trips, the HSE had no related documentation. She had established some of the details from interviews with HSE and other personnel and other methods.
The money in the account controlled by the Siptu officials came from the budget of the Skill programme, which was designed to provide training to low-paid health sector workers.
Mr Merrigan and Mr Kelly are believed to have travelled on a number of the trips. They and others travelled to New York in March 2004 and Boston in March 2007. Mr Merrigan travelled to New York in January 2005, March 2006, February 2007 and May 2008.
Alan Smith, who ran the Skill programme, travelled on 22 trips according to a list produced by Dr Geraldine Smith. One trip in October 2008 was to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. Mr Smith has since availed of the public service severance package.
Pat Harvey, the former chief executive of the North Western Health Board, Peter McLoone, the former head of Impact, Kevin Callinan of Impact, and Peter Bunting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, are among those listed as having travelled on trips paid for by the fund.
Mr McLoone is listed as having travelled to Boston in 2007 and Mr Harvey to New York in March 2006. The committee was told the HSE had some information as to the purpose of the visits, but it had no formal written records of the purpose and outcomes of the trips. This was because they were organised through the fund controlled by the Siptu officials.
The secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, said his department had identified trips on which officials had travelled funded by the account. Some were additional to those listed by Dr Smith.
He said an official had gone to Vancouver, Canada, in March 2003. Bernard Carey of the department had gone on a “partnership visit” to New York from March 13th to 20th, 2004.
Three officials had gone to St Paul, Minnesota in September 2004. In March 2005, Frank Ahern had gone on a trip to the US and Australia and in March 2008, by which time he was retired, he had gone to Savannah, Georgia. In March 2005, Eddie Flood had gone to New York.
In March 2006, an official had gone on an employer/union study visit to New York. Mr Carey had gone to New York between March 13th and 23rd, 2007. In October 2008, Jim Breslin, an assistant secretary at the department, had gone to Australia. Mr Breslin was at yesterday’s meeting.
In March 2009, Mr Carey and Mr Ahern had gone to New York. Mr Carey is also an assistant secretary in the department. Some officials brought their wives with them on some trips, but paid for them out of their own resources.
The committee also heard that an official from the Department of Finance, Tom Dowling, had gone on eight out of the 31 trips identified by Dr Smith. Five of these were to the UK and three to the US. Mr Dowling retired in October 2009.
Some of the costs incurred on the trips were subsequently recouped unvouched through Skill by the Siptu officials, Dr Smith said in her audit report on the matter.
© 2010 The Irish Times

We also read in Irish Independent Oct 7, 2010
“SIPTU official got €1,000 a day from HSE’s €2.35m slush fund
By Eilish O’Regan and Ann Marie Walsh,
Irish Independent, October 07 2010
A FORMER trade union boss was entitled to fees of up to €1,000 a day for chairing each meeting of the group overseeing the controversial state training scheme for health workers, the Irish Independent has learned.
SIPTU’s Billy Attley chaired the steering group for the €60m ‘Skill’ training scheme, which will be at the centre of a hearing by the Dail Committee on Public Accounts today.
A damning internal Heath Service Executive (HSE) audit has found that €2.35m paid into a SIPTU account to administer the scheme was poorly accounted for, with money lavished on foreign study trips, taxis and a private pension.
The union announced last night that it had lodged €348,000 with the Commissioner for Oaths “in good faith”. This is equal to a sum that the auditors found could not be accounted for.
A SIPTU spokesman again insisted that the account was not in the control of the union. But he said the union had told the HSE it would reimburse any expenses that could not be properly accounted for.
Expenses
Mr Attley, who was appointed to the chair in 2004, told this newspaper he was entitled to up to €1,000 for chairing each meeting, but only claimed half that for half-day meetings held every second month.
Mr Attley said he was also entitled to unspecified expenses that he did not claim.
The audit report showed that he had been paid €26,750 up to the end of 2009.
He rejected claims that the steering group was at fault for not monitoring the €2.35m fund, saying its brief was to approve training programmes.
“We had no control over finance. We had no role in that area — that was the responsibility of the HSE,” he added.
The report revealed yet more waste of the €2.35m. It found :
The Skill office clocked up service costs of €526,444, none of which were tendered for.
• One journey involved a taxi from Dublin to Kilkenny, a wait for the client and a return to Dublin at a cost of €432.
• Another involved a journey from St James’s Hospital in Dublin to Tullamore, returning to the capital via Louth and Dublin Airport, at a cost of €544.
In evidence to the audit committee, one of the union officials with access to the account said the Department of Health gave him the grant with no guidelines or terms and conditions as to how the money should be spent.”
- Eilish O’Regan and Ann Marie Walsh

Funding of Trade Union Education by Government
Trade union education and training activities became heavily dependent on state funding under partnership. An example is set out in the press report below from the Irish Examiner. When activists questioned such dependency in the past, they were routinely told that the funding had “no strings attached”
We were soon to learn otherwise!
“Fás fund paid out €4.5m to two unions
By Conor Ryan, Political Correspondent
Irish Examiner, Monday, September 06, 2010
A MASSIVE €4.5 million was paid out to SIPTU and ICTU from the misspent Fás training package which has caused the European Commission to withhold €57m in social funding.
However, the main union involved has said the benefits it received from this training fund, the Competency Development Programme (CDP), had nothing to do with its vociferous defence of the continued existence of Fás after news of Europe’s actions broke.

At the weekend Jack O’Connor, president of SIPTU and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said Ruairí Quinn of the Labour Party was “completely wrong in his call for closing down Fás”.

Mr Quinn had made his comments after the Department of Education confirmed the last round of European social funding (2000-2006) worth €57m had been withheld and the next tranche (2007-2013), worth €211m is frozen, pending an audit of how Fás spent the money.

A major part of this was the CDP, which was focused on programmes for workers who wanted to up-skill.

The commission has already said Ireland had “serious questions to answer” in how Fás paid out money to a multitude of private companies to provide training.

Since 2004 SIPTU College received €2.06m from Fás under the CDP. ICTU was paid €2.46m. In 2008 alone SIPTU College was paid €862,644 and ICTU received €1,338,064.

These figures were published by website The Story.ie.”

These revelations have raised questions about the relationship between senior trade union officials and government under partnership
In the next section, we set out the remunerations of general secretaries including salaries, pensions and fees from state bodies.

Pay and other Incomes of General Secretaries

General secretaries (General Presidents in SIPTU) are normally paid in accordance with the salaries of the highest grades in the civil service. While practices differ across unions, a small public sector union would typically pay its general secretary on the assistant secretary scale reaching €147,036 in the fourth year of service. The salaries of the general secretaries of the bigger unions would typically relate to the higher Deputy General Secretary and Secretary General scales below. While unions must purchase pensions in the private sector, the pensions in payment are roughly similar to equivalent public service pensions. Despite the salary equivalences, salaries of general secretaries were generally not cut in accordance with the public service pay cut effective from Jan 1, 2010.
Revised pay with effect from 1 March 2008 for General Service Grades.
Circular 5/2008 – Appendix 1A

ASSISTANT SECRETARY
€128,535 €134,378 €140,707 €147,036
DEPUTY SECRETARY
€173,217
SECRETARY GENERAL
€216,516
Senator Shane Ross and Nick Webb of the Sunday Independent have authored a book called “Wasters” (2010). They are hostile to the trade union movement and they wish that social partnership should be replaced by an even more neo-liberal system.
They continually peddle the myth that the first benchmarking award for middle earners in the public service was excessive at 8.9%. In fact public servants had not received any catch up award with their established private sector comparators for the previous 9 years and the award was far less than adequate to bridge the gap.
Senators,TDs, Ministers and general secretaries did benefit hugely from the separate benchmarking of higher grades to chief executives of private companies. For example, the maximum of the assistant secretary grade in the civil service increased from E95,487 in 2003 to E147,036 in 2008, an increase of over E50,000!! Increases for higher grades were even larger.
However the Chapter on the “Social Partnership Industry” is interesting and it is worth remembering that it has been scrutinised for vulnerability to libel action by the authors’ legal team. While NPSA dissociates from the elitist denigration of the humble beginnings of trade union leaders and even their personal appearance in the right wing narrative, the financial facts cited appear to be correct. A general secretary in service would receive the remunerations mentioned below in addition to salary, while a retired general secretary would receive the remunerations in addition to pension

Extracts from “The Social Partnership Industry”, Wasters, Nick Webb and Shane Ross
A brief flavour of the Chapter entitled “The Social Partnership Industry” is included here:
“Meanwhile, nearly all the top union leaders were landing handy part-time state positions. Peter McLoone, boss of the public-service union IMPACT, not only held the chair at FAS for €24,000 a year but was appointed a director of the Labour Relations Commission at €14,000 a year. Senator Joe O’Toole finished up his term as president of ICTU, only to find himself on the board of the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority at around €9,000 a year and as the ICTU nominee on the Personal Injuries Assessment Board at a fee rising to €14,000 in 2008. Christy Kirwan, formerly head of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, had earlier totted up several other semi-state board posts including Aer Rianta and the chair of FAS; he even landed a Taoiseach’s nomination to the Senate courtesy of Labour leader Dick Spring as far back as 1983.
SIPTU’s Patricia King, another loyal survivor of the 2002 PVGs, notched up lucrative terms on the RTE Authority and the National Roads Authority. Hardly a union leader with a partnership pedigree was forgotten.
One particularly useful vehicle for rewarding social-partnership veterans in the twilight of their careers was the office of rights com¬missioner. Rights commissioners were creatures of the Labour Relations Commission, established under partnership deals to pro¬mote the improvement of industrial relations’. The LRC’s first chief was Kieran Mulvey – a former general secretary of the powerful teachers union ASTI – who in 1989 had sought a nomination for Fianna Fail in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown constituency; its board included not only Peter McLoone and Peter Bunting of ICTU but also Brendan McGinty of IBEC. Rights commissioners were appointed to investigate workers’ grievances under various acts of the Oireachtas. By 2008 their number had expanded to fifteen after a promise made to ICTU in the most recent partnership agreement, “Towards 2016″. In April 2010 the Rights Commissioner Service admitted to us that in 2009 each commissioner was paid a per diem fee of Euro 470
The spokesman also noted, incomprehensibly, that most commissioners `work a five-day-week basis, others choose to operate a lesser regime in terms of availability’. Those who work the five days get €2,350 a week for their trouble, comfortably exceeding €100,000 a year——–“
(As hearings are held all over the state expenses are significant—PH)
—————————————————————————————————————-
“He (Des Geraghty) had been on the board of FAS, the national training and employment agency, for nearly ten years.
For nearly twenty years, eight seats on the board of FAS were reserved for the favourite sons of the big employers and the unions. The chairmanship of the board – with its €24,000 salary – rotated between a top boss at the big employers’ outfit, IBEC, and a union chief. Geraghty was one of the insiders who drew € 14,000 a year for the privilege of sitting comfortably beside so many other `social partners’.Four months after the UCD conferral, FAS would be exposed as a hotbed of waste, junketry and mismanagement. A year later, at the end of 2009, the entire seventeen-member board of FAS, including Geraghty, was forced to exit, some exposed as junketeers, others (like Geraghty) simply ineffective.
In 2005 a little quango called the Affordable Homes Partnership (AHP) was created under the terms of the most recent social-partnership agree¬ment. The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, offered the chair to Geraghty, who accepted. The chairman’s fee was settled at €13,000. Geraghty received only €8,000 in 2005 because it was a short year, but the quango paid him €30,000 in 2006, another €30,000 in 2007 and €25,000 in 2008.——— Add that to his fee at FAS, his pension as general secretary of SIPTU and other perks, such as a sti¬pend from his post as chairman of the Irish Print and Packaging Forum, and an observer might conclude that Geraghty has been in the right place at the right time.”
(Des Geraghty was recently appointed to the Board of the Central Bank to replace ICTU General Secretary, David Begg–PH)

“Billy Attley was one of the first social-partnership quangsters. He retired as general secretary of S I P T U at the age of sixty in 1998, hav¬ing helped to deliver four partnership deals to Fianna Fail governments. He was picked by Bertie Ahern as one of the original trade-union directors of FAS, and served for years alongside his pal, chairman John Lynch, and another trade unionist, Christy Kirwan. There is no known record of a moment’s discord on this chummiest of boards. Billy Attley had torn himself away from the joys of FAS long before the board was forced to leave office; but he made up for the loss elsewhere. Despite his friendship with Bertie, he maintained his Labour Party membership, a link that did him no harm when he was appointed to the RTE Authority by Labour minister Michael D. Higgins in 1995.
Attley’s good working relationship with Bertie probably landed him his seat on the board of Eircom in 1999. This was a real jackpot: the part-time job carried an annual fee of €48,000.”
-Wasters extracts end here

We recall from Irish Independent report carried above
“SIPTU’s Billy Attley chaired the steering group for the €60m ‘Skill’ training scheme, which will be at the centre of a hearing by the Dail Committee on Public Accounts today.– –
The (HSE) audit report showed that he had been paid €26,750 up to the end of 2009.” –Irish Independent

Threats to Union Officials by Government

After the pay cut in the public service which was effective from January1, 2010, the strike movement of the previous year was not resumed but works to rule were implemented across the public service. The Report below, from the Irish Times describes the situation very well. Already the membership of the new FAS board had been announced in Mid-January. The Board had previously been chaired by IMPACT Gen SEC, Peter McLoone, Chair of Public Services Committee ICTU, and a number of trade union representatives also sat on it.
The new board did not contain a single trade union representative.
“Government plan to clamp down on services to unions
MARTIN WALL, Industry Correspondent, IRISH TIMES, Sat, Jan 23, 2010
THE GOVERNMENT is to consider proposals next week to clamp down on services and facilities which it provides to trade unions representing staff in the public service.
The proposals, which will be contained in a memorandum for Government drawn up by the Department of Finance, come as industrial action across the public service in protest at pay cuts following the budget last month get under way in earnest.
Among the issues to be examined by the Cabinet is the facility which allows union subscriptions to be deducted at source from the pay of public service staff.
The Government is also expected to consider the future of officials on the State payroll who currently work on local partnership issues between unions and Government departments and bodies.”—————————————————————————————
The material in the article above could only have come from the Department of Finance.
Government was threatening to remove the perks of partnership from full time officials. Appointments to state boards would end. Would state funding of trade union education and training dry up?
Deduction at Source

Trade union officials of Public Service are paid from the proceeds of Deduction at Source. Union members authorise the state to deduct union subscriptions from their pay cheques. This is a hugely more effective means of collecting union dues than collection from individual members by local trade union representatives. Trade Union head offices receive large financial transfers on a regular and predictable basis.
If this facility were withdrawn union finances would be endangered. Unions representing general clerical and manual grades such as SIPTU and IMPACT would be particularly badly hit as a system of direct debits from bank accounts would be more difficult to put in place among low paid members.
A drop in revenue to union head offices could be very large. Unions had already failed to prevent a pay cut and a selective tax called a pension levy on public servants. Would the members pay up every week and how would dues be collected even if they were willing? The old system of dues collection by shop stewards is virtually non-existent in the public service.

Would union officials have to take a pay cut? Would there be redundancies of union officials?

The General Secretaries on the Public Services Negotiating Committee sought to get into talks. Committee chair Peter McLoone was on the board of the Labour Relations Commission. Kieran Mulvey, former ASTI general secretary, and CEO of the Commission soon intervened to call the government and unions together. This process culminated in the Croke Park Deal.

Compulsory Redundancies in the Public Service

However, there was another problem. From the talks in Nov/Dec 2009, the union leaders knew that the government would be demanding huge concessions. How could these be “sold” to union members? How could it be imposed on individual unions? Already, thousands of jobs had been eliminated under the public service recruitment embargo and the vast majority of public servants were heavily overloaded and public services were being cut back.
A key strength of “grass-roots” public service trade unionism has always been the understanding that permanent whole-time public servants could not be made redundant. This was also understood to apply to holders of Contracts of Indefinite Duration (CIDs).
NPSA can find no public threat by Government representatives to make permanent wholetime public servants compulsorily redundant prior to the opening of negotiations. The moratorium/recruitment ban relies on non-replacement for job elimination.
While there is no statutory provision for public service permanency, it is strong custom and practice stretching back to the era of British rule. This is reinforced by the fact that public servants employed prior to the mid-nineties are not covered by the Redundancy Payments Scheme.
There are no compelling legal judgements in this state on the issue. However, the British Law Lords found in favour of a public servant on the issue stating that permanence in the public service meant retention in employment until pensionable age. A contrary decision by a lower court was overturned.( McClelland v Northern Ireland General Health Services.)
Any redundancy could be contested in court. Irrespective of the law, public service unions were in a position to insist that permanence to retiring age was a condition of employment in industrial relations terms. Compulsory redundancy could be contested in the Labour Court and it would form a legitimate basis for industrial action. The Public Services Negotiating Committee sought legal advice.
It says that the legal advice is that public servants can be made redundant under law.

PSC then decided to seek an assurance in an industrial relations agreement with government (Croke Park Deal) that public servants would not be made compulsorily redundant!

Though it may appear to be a reasonable action to the uninformed, this was a historic retreat by the general secretaries on the PS (Negotiating Committee)
What are the implications of seeking the incorporation of such an assurance in a time- limited industrial relations agreement?
It is a clear concession that public service permanency is not a legal entitlement though this had never been decided by a court. Legal advices often differ in such circumstances.
It is also a clear concession that government had a right in industrial relations practice to make permanent public servants redundant.
Experienced negotiators would know that immediately such concessions were made, the government would demand huge concessions from the trade union side for the inclusion of such an assurance in a Public Services Agreement.
Furthermore, after the current agreement expires, government would be expected seek further concessions for the renewal of the assurance in any new agreement.

The Croke Park Agreement contained two clauses relevant to this issue.

6. The Government gives a commitment that compulsory redundancy will not apply within the public service, save where existing exit provisions apply. This commitment is subject to compliance with the terms of this Agreement and, in particular, to the agreed flexibility on redeployment being delivered. To that end, the redeployment arrangements referred to below will include opportunities for re-skilling and re-assignment as a key method to retain and secure employment in comparable roles in the public service.
28. The implementation of this Agreement is subject to no currently unforeseen budgetary deterioration.

It is not widely understood that the government escape clause (28 above) applies to the “no compulsory redundancy” clause (6 above) as well as to the assurance of no further pay cuts and the process of pay restoration.

Government could renege on the conditional “no compulsory redundancy” assurance at any time because of the current “unforeseen budgetary deterioration” which led to the intervention of the IMF.
The threat of redundancy is now being used to pressurise members of unions which voted “no” to the Deal to comply with it or lose their jobs. (The threat that the pensions of public servants, members of non-compliant unions, retiring in 2011 would reflect the pay cut is also being used)
Experienced general secretaries could be expected to foresee that this is precisely what would happen.

The concession by General Secretaries that permanent public servants could be made redundant was, indeed, a historic retreat. It was such a huge retreat that a special congress of each individual union should have been called to discuss the matter before the assurance was sought.
Not alone did this not occur, but none of the many trade union executive members who attend NPSA meetings can recall the matter being explained to the executive of their union before the negotiations.

The biggest retreat in Public Service trade union history took place without many trade union executives and executive members being aware of what was happening and its implications.

Sun Back in it’s Heaven!!!
Sept 29,2010
The Minister for Finance, Mr Brian Lenihan, TD, has today appointed five members to the Central Bank Commission with effect from Friday, 1 October.
As provided for in legislation, the terms of office of the first appointees will vary in length in order to ensure that future vacancies on the Commission will be staggered. The appointees and their terms of office are as follows:
Professor John Fitzgerald (5 years)
Mr. Max Watson (5 years)
Mr. Michael Soden (4 years)
Mr. Des Geraghty (4 years)
Professor Blanaid Clarke (3 years)
From http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/…/the-central-bank-commission
As pointed out above, there was no trade union representative among government nominees to the board of Fás which was announced in January 2010 before the Croke Park Deal was done.
As can be seen from the above announcement in the wake of the Croke Park Deal, the sun is back in its heaven. Former SIPTU President Des Geraghty was appointed to the Board of the Central Bank with effect from October 1, 2010 . David Begg is no longer serving on that body.

Technically Social Partnership Agreements may be dead but the Social Partnership Industry is back in business.

General Secretaries Must Be Brought Back Under the Control of Members

Current ICTU President and Siptu General President, Jack O’Connor should resign. Current ICTU General Secretary, David Begg should also resign. All the members of the executive council of ICTU in the past decade, but particularly in the 2003 to 2008, period have a case to answer.

David Begg, ICTU General Secretary, was a member of the board of directors of the central bank for 15 years until mid-2010. This included the 2003 to 2007 period when Irish banks were allowed to borrow an additional
50% of Gross Domestic Product of the country. The banks then lent the money in a manner that led to national economic disaster.
Both ICTU and SIPTU employ professional economic advisors whose services are available to the leadership.
General Secretary – David Begg

David Begg became General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in 2001. For five years prior to that he was Chief Executive of Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation working in 27 countries and with offices in Dublin, London, Belfast, New York and Chicago. He is also a Director of the Central Bank (since 1995), a Governor of the Irish Times Trust, non Executive Director of Aer Lingus, a member of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), and of the Advisory Board of Development Co-operation Ireland. He also sits on the Executive Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). (ICTU Website)

General President
Jack O’Connor has been General President of SIPTU since 2003, having been re-elected in 2006 for a second term.
He is also President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) since July of 2009 and served previously as Vice President from mid-2007. He has been a member of the Executive Council of Congress since 2001. (SIPTU Website)

ICTU remained in social partnership with a government which led the country into bankruptcy, a condition which is now causing untold hardship to working people, the unemployed and their dependents. Partnership agreements were not narrow wage agreements. As shown above in relation to the ten year long agreement Towards 2016, they effectively assented by their actions to an economic and social policy of government which led to disastrous outcomes for members. In the private sector members have been forced to accept redundancies, pay cuts and devastation of pension schemes. After 23 years of social partnership there is no legal requirement on employers to recognise trade unions. An EU directive protecting the pensions of private sector workers has not been transposed into law. The pensions of British workers in the Waterford-Wedgewood Group are protected up to 90% of value by law. The Irish workers in the same Group, former employees of Waterford Crystal, are taking legal action under EU law to recover their pensions. In the public sector, pay cuts and pension levies have been imposed “on the watch” of the the current executive council and officer board of ICTU. At the request of ICTU, a Public Service Agreement (Croke Park Deal) has been brokered under which conditions of service established over the past fifty years are being removed. Public Services are being devastated under a staffing moratorium which does not protect caring and educational services with 2000 nursing posts already eliminated.
It all happened under the watch of the current leadership. They have led members into misery and full retreat.

The leadership of the caste of General Secretaries and Senior Trade Union Officials has failed.

Why are general secretaries currently beyond the control of members?

Firstly, general secretaries are permanent employees and are normally not subject to re-election. Most are members of a single Branch of SIPTU. As permanent employees they are not subject to the outcomes they negotiate. They have career interests which are separate from the interests of the members they represent. Except for the very large unions, they sit alone on the executive council of ICTU. Even where a large union has more than one representative, each is invariably a senior full-time official. SIPTU and IMPACT together have a majority in ICTU. These two unions effectively decide who gets the nomination to public boards, who gets the post-retirement job as a rights commissioner, labour court judge etc. Any general secretary who stands up to them will get no preferment. The same is true for sub-general secretary officials in the big unions. The lucrative post-retirement job is now structured into the career path of general secretaries.
General secretaries have developed very sophisticated manipulation techniques. Among these is the combination of militant talk with practical collaboration. The SIPTU-IMPACT nexus can tolerate strong public opposition by the smaller unions in initial voting on national agreements. The general secretaries of the “no to Croke Park” unions are forgiven for their initial stance. This stance is seen as necessary to deliver up recalcitrant members later. But once SIPTU/IMPACT has expressed its majority within ICTU, general secretaries would not be forgiven for failing to bring their unions into line. The absence of any sustained opposition by a single general secretary to the plainly disastrous policies of the ICTU leadership speaks volumes.

During social partnership all the main business of unions is done through ICTU. The caste of general secretaries and senior full time officials who sit on the executive council of ICTU have complete control of information and they habitually collaborate together to ensure this is so. This allows them to withhold information or to give partial information to national executives until their desired fait accompli is in place. Because none of the elected members of national executives including elected presidents have first-hand knowledge of the proceedings of the executive council, the executive is highly vulnerable to manipulation by general secretaries. Because sectoral talks within national negotiations take place under the auspices of ICTU, lay presidents can be ( and have been) excluded from vital talks. In recent months the secretary of the Public Services Committee (ICTU) urged unions to send only one official to a meeting of the negotiating committee—no tales out of school there.
General secretaries are in constant contact with other general secretaries in the sector and with the employer negotiators. This allows them to bring processes forward in stages until there is no way back for the elected representatives when they realise what is happening. Planned scheduling of executive meetings of different unions in the sector is common. The meeting of the weakest executive is scheduled first. After the desired objective is passed there, this result is used to pressure the next executive into compliance.

There is nothing new in the collaborationist tendencies of full-time officials. James Connolly himself remarked on such negative tendencies before his death. The difference in approach between the militant Big Jim Larkin and the conservative Willie O’Brien split the old ITGWU (now reunited in SIPTU) for decades. There were always some preferments available to some general secretaries.

What is new is the overwhelming extent of the rewards available to senior union officials under social partnership. There is effectively “one for everyone in the audience”—provided they stay in line
Huge preferments on the nomination of the government with whom they negotiate are available to the most prominent union leaders.
General secretaries can also distribute minor preferments including “junkets” to members of national executives helping them to maintain control. Under “partnership” minor preferments and “junkets” are now routinely made available to some favoured branch officers, giving a further instrument of control to head offices.

Why are elected Presidents and elected national executive members unable to control and direct general secretaries though they are empowered to do so under rule?

(NPSA relies here on the experience of several former union presidents and current and past executive members who participate in its deliberations).

Firstly, many presidents and executive members have no wish to control general secretaries as they form part of cliques centred on the general secretary. The extent of the largesse available to general secretaries for allocation to executive members is a factor here. In addition the extent of expenses paid in most unions not only tends to attract the wrong type of full-time official but also the wrong type of executive member. Many executive members and Presidents owe their election to the general secretary’s clique in the branches.

National executive members who genuinely wish to control officials on behalf of their members face an impossible task though some presidents and executive members have achieved important victories. It is a victory to merely survive a period in office without being compromised.
National executive members and Presidents face regular re-election. General secretaries, even where originally elected, do not normally face re-election. The general secretary has a vast array of contacts including contacts with other general secretaries in the sector, contacts with employer representatives, contacts with journalists, contacts with the retained union solicitors, and importantly contacts with members of the general secretary’s clique in the branch of each executive member. The permanent general secretary is in a powerful position to “trip up” an elected person and to damage their prospects of re-election. Often, understandably, lay presidents require expert assistance
in order to operate on the national stage, a role to which they are unaccustomed and for which they have no training. If the general secretary withholds such assistance or is trying “to trip them up”, the president would face serious difficulties. Faced with this, most presidents allow the general secretary to determine policy and to lead the union. This often means allowing the general secretary to allocate nominations to partnership bodies and to distribute “junkets” to favourites.

Bringing Smaller Unions into Line

General Secretaries of smaller unions face a problem if their union has opposed a national pay agreement with which SIPTU/IMPACT has agreed. ICTU is not a trade union and has no power to conclude industrial relations agreements. Each individual union must be brought into line. The general secretary will not be forgiven if his union does not accept the SIPTU/IMPACT decision. He will be cut out of preferments such as rights commissioner appointments and nominations to public boards. He must ensure, firstly, that the smaller unions do not combine together to oppose SIPTU/IMPACT. Then in collusion with colleague general secretaries an order of business is agreed. The union whose opposition is weakest is pressurised into capitulating fist. Then this capitulation is used to pressurise another union into submission. This process is continued until the remaining “hard-line” unions are isolated and crushed. This process has been made more effective in considerations of the Croke Park Deal as members of recalcitrant unions can be threatened with compulsory redundancy and further pay cuts.
The Old Legal Advice Trick
National executives of trade unions routinely deal with complex matters. A diligent national executive member may demand legal advice. The General secretary may agree.
The General Secretary, perhaps together with a compliant President, meets the legal adviser. Crucially, this enables the general secretary to brief the lawyer and frame the questions. Often, the solicitor receives a large volume of business from the union and wishes to remain in favour with the general secretary. If the legal answers are not entirely helpful to the general secretary, he can give a report of the legal advice to the executive rather than written legal advice signed by the lawyer. The manipulation of legal advice is a key tool of general secretaries.

Officialdom Cloning Itself

It is usual for ICTU officials to sit on interview boards for the appointment of officials, including new general secretaries, of affiliated unions. Also, the current general secretary of the individual union is almost always on the interview board. The ICTU official and the general secretary are well known to each other. The ICTU representative is often chosen by the general secretary. The possibility of a candidate not meeting the approval of the caste of general secretaries and/or who is opposed to partnership being appointed is very remote. “Dumping” of unwanted officials of powerful unions on smaller unions is not unknown.

As I have said in the introduction to this pamphlet, the ongoing destruction of conditions of service established over decades under the Croke Park Deal threatens the very survival of trade unions. Will hundreds of thousands of members continue to pay dues to a body which has failed to protect them to pay cuts, “pension” levy, moratorium and which even offered up their conditions of service to government in December 2009? The answer is:not for very long. One leading public service trade unionist has described the Deal as “a suicide note by trade unions” .

How are General Secretaries to be brought under control

This task is of extreme urgency if trade unions are to be restored as genuine fighting organisations championing the interests of members as a central priority.
The first requirement is that general secretaries should be elected by members and, even more crucially, should be subject to re-election at frequent intervals. I am completely opposed to any governmental or legislative interference in this area. The trade unions must be renewed from within.
Changes of union rules should be proposed at national congresses to effect these changes. Re-election at intervals of 3 years would be appropriate.

Unions should ensure that representatives on all ICTU bodies are lay elected officers in service or on short sabbatical (not long-term secondment) who are subject to re-election.
Control of information and the timing of its release has always been crucial to the survival of powerful elites. An adviser, member of the national executive, should accompany the representative to every meeting at ICTU. Such adviser should serve for two years only with re-nomination precluded.

There is no ICTU rule confining eligibility for election to the executive council to general secretaries. Over the years, general secretaries have established a custom and practice that they hold these positions.

It is totally inappropriate that a caste of permanent general secretaries can meet alone at ICTU and make decisions about which national executives may have insufficient knowledge. Some of these decisions are effectively irreversible.

It should be part of the conditions of employment of general secretary that s/he cannot take up employment in the public service for two years after severance. The Labour Party has recently proposed that a two year ban on civil servants taking up employment with private companies with which they engage in office should replace the current one year restriction. Similar principles also sometimes apply in private sector employment.

Activists making such proposals will be accused of questioning the integrity of the general secretary. This is not so. A systemic problem, not the qualities of an individual, is being addressed. These are normal principles of accountability. Accountability, like justice, must not only exist but must be seen to exist. Such accusations have always been made against those advocating true democracy.

Representation on public bodies can often be helpful for trade union members. Full-time officials should be precluded from accepting such appointments while serving or after severance. Lay members should be nominated to such positions for a time limited period only with re-nomination precluded.

Contracts of employment of general secretaries should be revised to provide for removal from office for failure to uphold union policy in all dealings. A specific offense should be written into disciplinary codes and a fair procedure for processing an allegation in this regard should be put in place.

Remuneration of full-time officials should be directly related to the pay of those they represent and should not exceed the maximum basic pay of members subject to an upper limit of 100,000 Euro indexed to future inflation. Where members on a number of scales are represented, statisticians would have no difficulty in establishing a basket of scales maxima and an appropriate multiplier to establish a salary scale.
This would ensure that the general secretary would be subject to the outcomes negotiated for members.

The model of leadership of unions by general secretaries has failed

The above proposals may sound drastic. But they are necessary to rescue the Trade Union movement from the debacle into which members have been led. The negative tendencies in permanent officialdom identified by James Connolly almost 100 years ago have led to support for disastrous government policies with attendant unemployment and emigration, to acquiescence to pay cuts and to surrender of hard-won conditions of service in state employment under the Croke Park Deal.
The implementation of these proposals is a matter of urgency. It takes priority over policy determination. Policy has very little effect if it can be made ineffective by the general secretary and colleagues on the executive council of ICTU.
Union activists may have further proposals which will be discussed at future meetings of NPSA.
Readers are invited to submit suggestions.

Paddy Healy March 2011

Page 21

Election Pledge: Reverse Public Service Pension Cuts

Campaign for Reversal of Reduction in Public Service Pensions

Chair: Paddy Healy, Dublin
Secretary: Cathleen Bowen, Cork
Please reply to cathleenbowen@gmail.com

Dear Oireachtas Member,

Pledge by General Election Candidates

“If elected to Dail Eireann, I will propose and support an amendment to the Finance Act, 2011 which would reverse the cut in public service pensions announced in Budget 2011.
I will also vote against any legislative measure which would impose further reductions in public sector pensions”
Please indicate your agreement to the above statement by sending a message on email to our secretary, Cathleen Bowen, at the above address.
The responses will be published on Wednesday, Feb 23
Paddy Healy 086-4183732
From Sean Fallon, Secretary Retired Secondary Teachers Association

Legality of Recent Pension Cuts?
We now know the impact of the budget pension cuts on our fortnightly cheques. Elsewhere in this newsletter there are sample figures showing the extent of the cuts on an annual basis for retirees on pensions ranging from €15,000 per year to €35,000 per year.
While the Government may have a right to increase the tax we have to pay on our pensions and may have a right to impose various levies, it is highly questionable and needs to be legally tested whether it has a right to cut our actual pensions. Three aspects of the pension cuts in particular need to be examined:
• Is there a contract between the retiree and the Government in relation to the size of pension due? When we signed our retirement documents and began receiving pension did that make it a contract and, as such, untouchable?
• Does the fact that our pension was improved in the past, like when pension parity was achieved in the early 1980s really give the Government the right to cut our pension if it chooses to? Retirees were happy with previous pension improvements. Does this not mean that on these occasions rather than breaching contract a new contract was being embraced by all parties, which superseded the old one? Naturally, nobody objected to the improvements. The current change is different in that it is a unilateral negative change by the Government. Is this a breach of contract?
• There is a question of ownership. When we paid our pension contributions, our “deferred salary,” the Government’s role was to hold this money in trust for us until we would retire. Does this make it “our property” and if so does the Government have the right to unilaterally reduce what it pays back or is it in breach of property legislation?
Our situation is different from that which arose in late 2010 in relation to bank bonuses. The money at issue in our case is money we contributed when working, our deferred salary. The money involved in the bank bonus issue may have a different legal status. Indeed, it is worth remembering that there was no court judgement in relation to the bank bonus payment since the bank in question did not contest the issue. The employee was paid the bonus but neither the right to receive it nor the right of the employer to refuse to pay it was established. Furthermore, when “experts” in contract law were interviewed on this issue at the time they were very strongly of the view that it is illegal for an employer to break a contract and the Government could not facilitate a breach of an existing contract. You cannot retrospectively unilaterally change the legal arrangements that applied when a contract was put in place. It is not always necessary, either, for a contract to be made in writing for it to be valid and binding.
It is interesting that our first two payslips since the cuts began to be implemented did not have the gross pension figure reduced. The cut was applied as a deduction, like a levy. Was this because the Government was not confident that it had a legal right to cut our pensions? Whether this is the case or not, and whether the gross figure is changed on future payslips or not, we need to know if the Government is acting illegally by cutting our pensions. The three teacher unions need to get legal advice on the specific matters referred to above and if necessary they need to take a test case to establish what will ultimately be the rights of all members of the unions. Emeritus members of the ASTI, supported by the union, would be ideal people to take such a case.
Legal advice from a non-teaching union, which suggests that if the Government can increase the pension at times it can also reduce it at times, does not provide the answers to the questions above. Clearly, when that legal advice was sought these were not the questions asked but they are the questions that need to be asked and answered. At the time of going to print these questions have not been answered. The three teacher unions had decided to jointly seek legal advice on this matter. Let us hope they do so quickly rather than accepting another union’s advice in response to the wrong question.

Seanad Election Statement-Paddy Healy

Seanad Election can be Used to Fight Cuts in Education and Public Services
The recent budget implemented severe cuts in public services and in the incomes of those on low and middle incomes. Under the humiliating EU/IMF Deal 5 billion euro in the current year and 10 billion by 2013 is being paid in debt servicing to European banks and other investors.
Cuts in education, health and other public services are now in place. Much more are promised in the next 3 budgets.
The Croke Park Deal implements such cuts. Over 2,500 nursing posts have been eliminated. Thousands of posts of responsibility delivering pastoral care are being eliminated in our schools. Lecturing posts are being eliminated reducing the service to third level students. Social workers are so overburdened that vulnerable people are unable to get the supports they need. Thousands of professional research staff are being employed under temporary contracts and dismissed when funding streams end as part of unjustifiable cuts in research funding.Many Post graduates and new graduates are unable to find jobs.
Social Welfare benefits have been cut and taxation on the lower paid and on middle incomes has been steeply increased. Not a penny of taxation has been placed on the assets of the super-rich. There are 450,000 unemployed of which 100,000 are graduates and many have already emigrated.
Public service pensions have now been cut on top of pay cuts and the imposition of the pension levy.
There is an alternative to this.
National Community Platform representing 29 caring bodies has launched a programme of proposals focussed on taxing the assets and incomes of the very rich instead of cutting public services. The programme-4Steps 2 Recovery is available on website http://communityplatform.ie/publications.html
Further valuable material is available from TASC —an independent think-tank dedicated to combating Ireland’s high level of economic inequality and ensuring that public policy has equality at its core. Website http://www.tascnet.ie/showPage.php?ID=1

Government irresponsibly allowed Irish Banks to borrow 90 billion Euro abroad after 2003. Now the very rich must make a major contribution to providing a remedy through increased tax payments on assets and very high incomes

I contested the Seanad election(NUI Panel) on the last occasion with the support of Teachers Union of Ireland(TUI) and Irish Federation of University Teachers and received almost 1500 votes.

Of course, cuts in public services cannot be prevented by the Seanad. But those elected can play an important role as public advocates on behalf of the interest groups they represent.

Senator Joe O’Toole has used his position to promote the Croke Park Deal under which thousands of temporary staff have been dismissed and over 10,000 permanent public service posts have been eliminated causing serious damage to public services.

A strong advocate for public services, for public servants,for employees generally and for the poor is urgently needed.

I will be contesting the Seanad Election on the NUI panel.
It is my intention if elected to use the position to enhance my work in organising public servants, employees generally and the poor to defend themselves against cuts and other oppressive policies. In pursuit of these objectives, I will be advocating increased taxation of the assets and incomes of the super-rich. Further information is available on my Blog above:

http://paddyhealy.wordpress.com

Above all a Registration Drive is needed immediately. A Registration Form can be downloaded at
http://www.nui.ie/elections/seanad-register.asp#reg1 Tá leagan gaeilge ar fáil ar an suíomh idirlín freisin.

If you wish to help with this work, please reply to this message or telephone me at 086-4183732

Paddy Healy

Government Must Tax the Super-Rich!
Letter to Irish Times Published To-day WED OCT 6
Taxing questions
• Madam, – Among the taxation proposals being mooted by government for the next and subsequent budgets is an extension of tax to the lower paid. This is to be accompanied by continued draconian reductions in the provision of health, education and other services required by the population generally and particularly by the poor. Government cuts and impositions on the poor and those on middle incomes who spend most of their income in Ireland will flatten the economy and increase the disastrous levels of unemployment and emigration.
Much of the €90 billion irresponsibly borrowed abroad by Irish banks since 2003 is still in the possession of the super-rich.
The borrowings which have bankrupt many developers have been paid to others.
The repayments on these borrowings are now being made by the citizens generally. Surely this money must be restored to the State as a priority?
The only way to recover this money is through an assets tax which is common in several countries (France, Norway, Switzerland) and in several states in the US.
If the €320 billion in assets (Wealth of the Nation Report, 2007) held by the top 5 per cent in 2007 has now shrunk to €250 billion(estimate of UNITE Trade Union), a 2 per cent annual assets tax on the top 5 per cent of asset holders would bring in €5 billion per year.
Raising the tax on the top 6 per cent who earn over €100,000 per annum from 27 per cent to 32 per cent of total salary, would raise a further €1.5 billion per year.
A significant increase in income taxes and assets taxes on the rich is no longer merely desirable in equity, it is a necessity in order to rescue the economy and to protect human services provision.
There is a real economic emergency. Surely the super-rich should make an emergency contribution? How about a little patriotism from them? – Yours, etc,
PADDY HEALY,
Griffith Court,
Fairview, Dublin 3.
Related Material such as recent articles on Education and Public Services by Tom Garvin Jim McKiernan Garret Fitzgerald Michael Cronin can also be viewed
Blog

http://paddyhealy.wordpress.com

My TWITTER address is paddyhealytui
Paddy Healy 086-4183732
Chair, National Public Services Alliance, Former President TUI

List system would protect Guilty Ministers-Reply to Garret Fitzgerald

A List System Would Protect Guilty Ministers
A reply to Garret FitzGerald by Paddy Healy
The disastrous performance of governments over the last decade has given rise to considerable public discussion on electoral reform. Many commentators favour the introduction of a national or regional list system to elect a significant proportion of Dail deputies. Garret Fitzgerald argues in Irish Times,Dec4:” the Dáil would benefit from having some TDs who would not be prisoners of local interests, but who could speak and act in the general national interest. Finally, and in national terms most important of all, the additional-member system would enable political parties to improve the quality of their Dáil representation by placing people with valuable expertise high on their supplementary lists.”
I believe that such a proposal would further damage our democracy. What are the assumptions behind such a proposal? It is assumed that undue attention to local matters and local constituents is a major factor in the failure of our political system. It is also assumed that “competent people” freed from local duties and accountability would be more likely to act in the national interest. Lurking behind the assumption is the incorrect view that the current crisis was caused by overspending on public services. The facts are that the proportion of GDP spent on public services in Ireland is low by west European standards. What is in fact low is the tax take which places a light burden on the rich and subsidises the investments of the rich with huge tax breaks in accordance with the precepts of neo-liberal economics.
This, together with trusting to competition and consequent failure to regulate the banks, caused the current crisis. In a word greed was deified. The main beneficiaries of FF/PD rule were the very rich who have very few votes.
The board of Directors of the Central Bank in the period 2003-2007 (which included a business and a trade union representative) were highly competent people with no local “parish pump” duties. Yet they failed miserably by allowing Irish Banks to borrow an additional 50% of GDP abroad in that period. Were the ministers who should have appropriately directed the Central Bank so overburdened with “parish pump” duties that they missed what was happening? In fact ministers have well staffed personal offices to deal with such matters as well as many local activists. They were in a position to concentrate on national affairs. Were these ministers incompetent? There is no reason to believe that the current cabinet is less competent than its predecessors. The fact that they led the country to destruction is not principally due to incompetence. Ministers had a civil service, the Economic and Social Research Institute and financial consultants reports available to them. Were the esteemed researchers of the ESRI so overburdened with constituency work that their warnings of danger were mild, muted, and full of caveats? I think not. Are they incompetent? Many professors and business PhDs staff the Institute. Would it have helped if many of them were in the Dail and in the cabinet via a list system? I think not. There is no reason to believe as Garret Fitzgerald argues that via a list system” the Dáil would benefit from having some TDs who would not be prisoners of local interests, but who could speak and act in the general national interest.” Many who were not prisoners of local interests acted in a more irresponsible way than those who were!
For a real explanation I believe we should return to the wise old saying : “Money is the root of all evil”. In a society where there is a vast disparity of wealth, it is inevitable that the majority of leading people (not just politicians) in society will be seduced into supporting the interests of the wealthy or at best remaining silent about the sins of the rich. It was ever thus. Leading people including journalists, professors, economic experts etc, tend to be sucked in to a cosy consensus of the rich in this form of society. “Dig-outs” by wealthy individuals or by banks and businesses may or may not be a factor in this. Absorption into the life-style of the rich and the adulation of their “betters” is sufficient for some. As they say in Tipperary: “With some people, a little goes a long way”. Great credit is due to academics such as Morgan Kelly and Tom O’Connor who stood out against the consensus (Long live tenure in our universities!)
Because the disparity of wealth is greater in Ireland than in most European Countries, the blandishments of the rich are more effective. When this tendency intersected with the flaws in the EU and in the Euro zone the outcome was disastrous. It is no accident that the main crisis flash-points are Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain-the less developed countries. Cheap money was available in the Eurozone. The rich of the less developed countries grabbed it, drove up asset values and enriched themselves. The Irish rich and their political allies acted with outrageous excess.
Short of fundamental social change to extirpate income disparity, there are some changes that could be introduced as a counterweight to the blandishments of the rich. A list system would worsen the situation by protecting ministers from the anger of the people. No matter what safeguards are put in place, it is inevitable that senior ministers would head the list and unless there was a complete voting collapse, the majority of the cabinet would be re-elected while the backbenchers suffered the consequences of bad government. Under the present system several ministers will rightly lose their seats or will be driven into retirement before the election.
Banning political donations and state funding of election candidates would help but only slightly. The reduction of the Dail term to three years would help greatly. The current government would have already been removed under such a system before they signed up to the disastrous EU/IMF deal. A means should be devised, a popular initiative, under which citizens through an official petition could call a general election. A situation in which a government with 13% support can conclude a deal which could impoverish generations is intolerable.
Finally there is a reform which is justified in its own right, though it is unlikely to protect us from bad governments. Currently Dail deputies are paid basic salary from the date they register until the Dail is dissolved even if they never attend. Recent changes affect expenses only. Dail deputies should have the same attendance regime as their civil service pay analogue in order to be paid salary. They should be required to register a vote, if only an abstention, on all stages of legislation. Pairing should only be allowed with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle in accordance with reasonable attendance criteria. This would end deprioritisation of the legislative function whether due to constituency pressures or the lure of the lecture circuit for former Taoisigh. Unfortunately, It is not surprising that politicians and former politicians never raise the matter of compulsory attendance of the Dail as a protection against undue competition at local level between deputies of the same party.
Never waste a good crisis! This is believed to be the motivation of the ruling elite in cutting the minimum wage. The dilution of popular democracy by the proposal of a list system of election could have the same motivation.

Sheehy and Fitzpatrick gain from Budget as Low Pensions Cut

SCROLL DOWN FOR INCOME REDUCTION TABLES AT VARIOUS GROSS PENSIONS by Sean Fallon
Income reductions for Public Service pensioners range range from 579.58 Euro p/a on a gross pension of 15,000 to 3,490.26 Euro per year on a pension of 45,000 euro p/a if recipient has medical card
——————————————————————————————–
Table for Private Sector Occupational Pensioner on 550,000 per year by Paddy Healy using Deloitte Calculator on line
GAIN of 15,962 Euro
Table for Private Sector Occupational Pensioner on 15,000 per year by Paddy Healy using Deloitte Calculator on line
Loss is 399 Euro per year
——————————————————————————————————
Eugene Sheehy retired on a pension of 529,000euro from AIB—he gains almost 16000 Euro per year from Budget. Sean Fitzpatrick retired from Anglo Irish Bank on a pension of 4 million –he gains many multiples of the Sheehy gains, 100,000Euro plus from budget
Attention has already been drawn to the fact that super-high earners are gaining significant amounts frombudget while low and middle income recipients are being hit.
There is an even greater inequity in the matter of pension income. As pensioners and non-employees do not pay PRSI and are not affected by the abolition of the ceiling, a pensioner on 550,000 Euro gains approximately 16,000Euro per year and an employer on the same income gains approximately 12,000 Euro.
On the other hand a person with a private sector pension of 15,000 Euro (less than the minimum wage) loses 400 Euro per year and a public sector pensioner on 15,000 Euro per year loses 580 Euro per year.
The injustice springs from two sources.
The pensions of public servants on low incomes are being directly cut while high income private pensioners such as former bank chief executives are not
The application of the Universal Social Charge to all income provided it is above 4004 Euro per year disadvantages all those on low incomes. Heath and Income levies had thresholds of 27,000Euro and 15,000 Euro respectively. On the other hand the universal social charge only comes to 7% on very high incomes though the levies it replaces come to 11% giving a huge gain to those on very high pension incomes. Indeed a retired minister on 150,000E gains 500 Euro by the substitution of the Universal charge for the old levies. Only the public service pension cut prevents him/her from making a nett gain.

Reductions in low and middle pensions are totally unjustified as their recipients contributed on the basis of an expectation or implied contract as to their retirement income
The cut in the Public service pension is an abuse by the government of its position as legislator to benefit the government as employer.
It is another example of unjustified attacks in this budget
Paddy Healy 086-4183732
HOW THE BUDGET AFFECTS PENSIONS
69 Year Old Public Service Pensioner
who was receiving €15,000 gross per annum PENSION
BEFORE AFTER
Gross €15,000.00 €14,820.00
DEDUCTIONS
Income Tax —— ——
Income Levy —— ——
Health Levy —— ——
Universal Social Charge —— € 399.58
(Over 70s) (€ 399.58)
CREDITS
Age Related Credit € 325.00* € 245.00*
Age Exemption Tax Returned € 340.00* ——
Tax saved by these —— * ——
Net Pension €15,000.00 €14,420.42
(Over 70s) (€14,420.42)
This is a Net cut of €579.58 P/A (€579.58 after age 70)
If you paid no Health Levy due to Medical Card your “Before” . Net Pension would have been €15,000.00 .
The Net cut would be €579.58 P/A (€579.58 after age 70) .
This calculation makes no allowance for any other credits or exemptions that may have been lost in the budget or may be lost afterwards.
Public service pensioners have paid for their pensions throughout their entire working lives. Their pension is deferred salary, held in trust for them for up to 40 years by the State, which has the use of this money in the interim to invest in Ireland. When the pension falls due there is no justification for withholding any part of it either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Government, as paymaster, should be paying an employer-contribution towards the public service pension for the same period of time, up to 40 years. Average employer contributions to pensions in the private sector are 5.8% (2010).
* Does not apply. Income too low. No tax to be paid.

——————————————————————————————————–
HOW THE BUDGET AFFECTS PENSIONS
69 Year Old Public Service Pensioner
who was receiving €20,000 gross per annum
PENSION
BEFORE AFTER
Gross €20,000.00 €19,520.00
DEDUCTIONS
Income Tax € 340.00 € 604.00
Income Levy € 400.00 ——
Health Levy —— ——
Universal Social Charge —— € 685.20
(Over 70s) (€ 580.08)
CREDITS
Age Related Credit € 325.00* € 245.00
Age Exemption € 340.00 ——
Tax saved by these € 340.00 € 49.00
Net Pension €19,600.00 € 18,279.80
(Over 70s) (€18,384.92)
This is a Net cut of €1,320.20 P/A (€1,215.08 after age 70)
If you paid no Health Levy due to Medical Card your “Before” . Net Pension would still have been €19,600.00 .
The Net cut would be €1,320.20 P/A (€1,215.08 after age 70)
This calculation makes no allowance for any other credits or exemptions that may have been lost in the budget or may be lost afterwards.
Public service pensioners have paid for their pensions throughout their entire working lives. Their pension is deferred salary, held in trust for them for up to 40 years by the State, which has the use of this money in the interim to invest in Ireland. When the pension falls due there is no justification for withholding any part of it either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Government, as paymaster, should be paying an employer-contribution towards the public service pension for the same period of time, up to 40 years. Average employer contributions to pensions in the private sector are 5.8% (2010).
* Does not apply (exceeded by age exemption). Under 65s add €65.00 to any figures for “Before” Net Pension & all “cut” figures shown.
——————————————————————————————————–
HOW THE BUDGET AFFECTS PENSIONS

A 69 Year Old Public Service Pensioner
who was receiving €30,000 gross per annum
PENSION
BEFORE AFTER
Gross €30,000.00 €28,920.00
DEDUCTIONS
Income Tax € 2,340.00 € 2,484.00
Income Levy € 600.00 ——
Health Levy € 1,200.00 ——
Universal Social Charge —— € 1,343.20
(Over 70s) (€ 956.08)
CREDITS
Age Related Credit € 325.00 € 245.00
Tax saved by this € 65.00 € 49.00

Net Pension €25,925.00 €25,140.92
(Over 70s) (€25,528.04)
This is a Net cut of €784.08 P/A (€396.96 after age 70).
If you paid no Health Levy due to Medical Card your “Before” . Net Pension would have been €27,125.00. .
The Net cut would be €1,984.08 P/A (€1,596.96 after age 70).
This calculation makes no allowance for any other credits or exemptions that may have been lost in the budget or may be lost afterwards.
Public service pensioners have paid for their pensions throughout their entire working lives. Their pension is deferred salary, held in trust for them for up to 40 years by the State, which has the use of this money in the interim to invest in Ireland. When the pension falls due there is no justification for withholding any part of it either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Government, as paymaster, should be paying an employer-contribution towards the public service pension for the same period of time, up to 40 years. Average employer contributions to pensions in the private sector are 5.8% (2010).
—————————————————————————————————
HOW THE BUDGET AFFECTS PENSIONS

69 Year Old Public Service Pensioner
who was receiving €35,000 gross per annum
PENSION
BEFORE AFTER
Gross €35,000.00 €33,290.00
DEDUCTIONS
Income Tax € 3,340.00 € 3,358.00
Income Levy € 700.00 ——
Health Levy 1,400.00 ——
Universal Social Charge —— € 1,649.20
(Over 70s) (€ 1,130.08)
CREDITS
Age Related Credit € 325.00* € 245.00
Tax saved by this € 65.00 € 49.00

Net Pension €29,635.00 € 28,331.90
(Over 70s) (€28,841.82)
This is a Net cut of €1,303.10 P/A (€794.08 after age 70)
If you paid no Health Levy due to Medical Card your “Before” . Net Pension would have been €31,035.00. .
The Net cut would be €2,703.10 P/A (€2,194.08 after age 70).
This calculation makes no allowance for any other credits or exemptions that may have been lost in the budget or may be lost afterwards.
Public service pensioners have paid for their pensions throughout their entire working lives. Their pension is deferred salary, held in trust for them for up to 40 years by the State, which has the use of this money in the interim to invest in Ireland. When the pension falls due there is no justification for withholding any part of it either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Government, as paymaster, should be paying an employer-contribution towards the public service pension for the same period of time, up to 40 years. Average employer contributions to pensions in the private sector are 5.8% (2010).
——————————————————————————————————–
HOW THE BUDGET AFFECTS PENSIONS

69 Year Old Public Service Pensioner
who was receiving €40,000 gross per annum
PENSION
BEFORE AFTER
Gross €40,000.00 €37,840.00
DEDUCTIONS
Income Tax € 4,340.00 € 4,268.00
Income Levy € 800.00 ——
Health Levy € 1,600.00 ——
Universal Social Charge —— € 1,967.60
(Over 70s) (€1,312.88)
CREDITS
Age Related Credit € 325.00 € 245.00
Tax saved by this € 65.00 € 49.00

Net Pension €33,325.00 €31,671.40
(Over 70s) (€32,308.12)
This is a Net cut of €1,653.60 P/A (€1,016.88 after age 70)
If you paid no Health Levy due to Medical Card your “Before” . Net Pension would have been €34,925.00 .
The Net cut would be €3,253.60 P/A (€2,616.88 after age 70)
This calculation makes no allowance for any other credits or exemptions that may have been lost in the budget or may be lost afterwards.
Public service pensioners have paid for their pensions throughout their entire working lives. Their pension is deferred salary, held in trust for them for up to 40 years by the State, which has the use of this money in the interim to invest in Ireland. When the pension falls due there is no justification for withholding any part of it either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Government, as paymaster, should be paying an employer-contribution towards the public service pension for the same period of time, up to 40 years. Average employer contributions to pensions in the private sector are 5.8% (2010).
——————————————————————————————————–
HOW THE BUDGET AFFECTS PENSIONS

A 69 Year Old Public Service Pensioner
who was receiving €45,000 gross per annum
PENSION
BEFORE AFTER
Gross €45,000.00 €42,390.00
DEDUCTIONS
Income Tax € 5,340.00 € 5,178.00
Income Levy € 900.00 ——
Health Levy € 1,800.00 ——
Universal Social Charge —— € 1,926.26
(Over 70s) (€1,374.24)
CREDITS
Age Related Credit € 325.00 € 245.00
Tax saved by this € 65.00 € 49.00

Net Pension € 37,025.00 € 35,334.74
(Over 70s) (€35,886.76)
This is a Net cut of €1690.26 P/A (€1138.24 after age 70).
If you paid no Health Levy due to Medical Card your “Before” . Net Pension would have been €38,825.00 .
The Net cut would be €3,490.26 P/A (€2,938.24 after age 70)
This calculation makes no allowance for any other credits or exemptions that may have been lost in the budget or may be lost afterwards.
Public service pensioners have paid for their pensions throughout their entire working lives. Their pension is deferred salary, held in trust for them for up to 40 years by the State, which has the use of this money in the interim to invest in Ireland. When the pension falls due there is no justification for withholding any part of it either temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, the Government, as paymaster, should be paying an employer-contribution towards the public service pension for the same period of time, up to 40 years. Average employer contributions to pensions in the private sector are 5.8% (2010).
—————————————————————————————————–
Paddy Healy
Private Sector Pensioner on 550,000 Euro (65-69 yrs)–NO CUT in Gross
after budget ————————- before budget
Your Income €550,000.00————————- €550,000.00
Loan BIK €0.00—————————————– €0.00
Vehicle BIK (1) €0.00——————————— €0.00
Health Insurance BIK €0.00——————————- €0.00
Qualifying Pension Deduction (€0.00)——————————- (€0.00)
Carer Allowance (€0.00)—————————————– (€0.00)
Tax @ Lower Rate (20 %) €6,560.00—————————————— (20 %) €7,280.00
Tax @ Higher Rate (41 %) €212,052.00—————————————— (41 %) €210,576.00
Tax Credits (€1,943.00)———————————————— (€2,155.00)
Net Tax (€216,669.00)——————————————- (€215,701.00)
PRSI (€0.00) —————————————————- (€0.00)
Health Levy N/A——————————————- (€26,750.00)
Income Levy N/A———————————————- (€28,000.00)
Universal Levy (€37,819.00)———————————– N/A
Annual Net Income €295,512.00———————————— €279,550.00

Nett Gain =295,512-279,550 =15,962 Euro
————————————————————————————————
Paddy Healy Private Sector Pensioner(65-69 yrs) on 15,000 per year
after budget—————————-before budget
Your Income €15,000.00————————————15,000.00
Loan BIK €0.00————————————————- €0.00
Vehicle BIK (1) €0.00——————————– €0.00
Health Insurance BIK €0.00—————— €0.00
Qualifying Pension Deduction (€0.00) ——————- (€0.00)
Carer Allowance (€0.00)————- (€0.00)
Tax @ Lower Rate (20 %) €0.00————————————— (20 %) €0.00
Tax @ Higher Rate (41 %) €0.00————————————- (41 %) €0.00
Tax Credits (€0.00) ————————————– (€0.00)
Net Tax (€0.00)—————————– (€0.00)
PRSI (€0.00) ———————————- (€0.00)
Health Levy N/A———————————– (€0.00)
Income Levy N/A———————————— (€0.00)
Universal Levy (€399.00)——————————– N/A
Annual Net Income €14,601.00——————————– €15,000.00
LOSS=15,000-14,601 =399 Euro per year

Stand up to EU/IMF—Sen. David Norris

The necessity to reject the usurious and impoverishing EU/IMF deal is gaining wider support. Trinity senator,David Norris attempted to read out the list of bondholders at Anglo-Irish bank in the Seanad but was interrupted by the Ceann-Comhairle. In the Sunday Independent, Dec 5, Senator Norris Explained:
“What I was doing in trying to put the list out is to show that they are German, French, Italian and British banks. So naturally they [the EU and IMF] are going to lend us money, so we can pay them. They’re going to screw us by extracting the money from the people.”
Mr Norris was scathing in his remarks on the €85bn deal the Government struck last week with the EU and IMF.
On this, he said: “These people in the ECB and in Europe know it’s wrong. Angela Merkel knows it’s wrong. But they’re only going to change the rules when they have screwed us.
“Nobody else will get screwed because nobody else will put up with it. My view always was: ‘You want to put it up to us? We’ll pull the plug. We’ll bring the whole bloody thing [the EU] down, unless you give us this money to pay yourselves at zero interest or one per cent.’ Six per cent is ridiculous. I mean, not only are they treating us like a money-laundering outfit for people who at the very least are stupid and greedy, ordinary Irish people, who haven’t done anything wrong, will have to pay for it.” See full list of Anglo-Irish Bondholders by clicking on this address
http://newswhip.ie/national-2/norris-reveals-the-names-of-irelands-bondholders-in-seanad

Analysis of Donegal SW by-election,

There are interesting pointers in the results of the Donegal South West By Election in addition to the first preference percentages. The actual counts are pasted below

As the combined vote of O’Neill +O’Domhnall was less than the O’Doherty total, O’Doherty was elected without reaching the Quota on the fouth count.

Fianna Fail fell behind Fine Gael on this count

On the final count, the combined FF+FG total was less than the Quota of 50%+1vote and less than the Sinn Fein total.(On First Count SF+Lab+LeftIndependent=60%)
Mc Brearty transfer to Fine Gael was 26% as against 43% to Sinn Fein. This was much less than a traditional Fg/Lab coalition transfer. The transfers from McBrearty and from Pringle to Fianna Fail were 8% and 12% respectively. This is less than half the Fianna Fail percentage of Poll on the first count. This indicates that Fianna Fail will suffer even more on crucial late counts than on first count in the next election. Labour and Left Independent transfers to Sinn Feinn worked well exceeding 40% in both cases.
The dog that didn’t bark in the night—-
Left Independent Thomas Pringle was not squeezed by Sinn Fein or by Labour.In the Spring-tide election Labour squeezed all other lefts. In the coming election the defection from Fianna Fail will be so great that left independents and Sinn Fein will be lifted as well as Labour. This augurs well for the prospects of the recently launched Unite Left Alliance in the next election. A Labour/Sinn Fein/Left majority may yet be possible on the numbers. The next election is likely to take place after the budget cuts are implemented. The defection from Fianna Fail will be all the greater.

Donegal SW Count
First Count
Pearse Doherty 13,719
Frank McBrearty 3,366
Brian Ó’Domhall 7354
Barry O’Neill 6,424
Thomas Pringle 3,438
Anne Phelan 131

Independent who had withdrawn before election eliminated
Second Count
Pearse Doherty (+17) 13,736,
Frank McBrearty (+9) 3,375,
Brian Ó’Domhall (+4) 7,358,
Barry O’Neill (+18) 6,442,
Thomas Pringle (+53) 3,491.

Mc Brearty Eliminated
Third Count

Pearse Doherty (SF) +1452 = 15,188 +43% of McB
Brian Ó’Domhall (FF) +278 = 7,636 +8.2% of McB
Barry O’Neill (FG) +871 = 7,313 +25.8% of McB
Thomas Pringle (Ind) +272 = 3,763 +8.1% of McB

Non Transferrable +502 = 524

Thomas Pringle Eliminated and fourth count proceeds
Final Count

Pearse Doherty (SF) + 1,709 16,897 +45.4% of TP
Brian Ó’Domhall (FF) + 433 8,069 +11.5% of TP
Barry O’Neill (FG) + 869 8,182 +23.1% of TP
As the combined vote of O’Neill +O’Domhnall was less than the O’Doherty total, O’Doherty was elected without reaching the Quota

On the final count, the combined FF+FG total was less than the Quota of 50%+1vote and less than the Sinn Fein total.(On First Count SF+Lab+LeftIndependent=60%)
Mc Brearty transfer to Fine Gael was 26% as against 43% to Sinn Fein. This was much less than a traditional Fg/Lab coalition transfer. The transfers from McBrearty and from Pringle to Fianna Fail were 8% and 12% respectively. This is less than half the Fianna Fail per centage of Poll on the first count. This indicates that Fianna Fail will suffer even more on crucial late counts than on first count in the next election. Labour and Left Independent transfers to Sinn Feinn worked well exceeding 40% in both cases.
The dog that didn’t bark in the night—-
Left Independent Thomas Pringle was not squeezed by Sinn Fein or by Labour.In the Spring-tide election Labour squeezed all other lefts. In the coming election the defection from Fianna Fail will be so great that left independents and Sinn Fein will be lifted as well as Labour. This augurs well for the prospects of the recently launched Unite Left Alliance in the next election. A Labour/Sinn Fein/Left majority may yet be possible on the numbers. The next election is likely to take place after the budget cuts are implemented. The defection from Fianna Fail will be all the greater.

Seanad Election can be Used to Fight Cuts in Public Services

Cuts in education, health and other public services are now in place. Much more are promised in the coming budget and in the following 3 budgets.

The Croke Park Deal facilitates such cuts. Over 2,500 nursing posts have been eliminated. Thousands of posts of responsibility delivering pastoral care are being eliminated in our schools. Lecturing posts are being eliminated reducing the service to third level students. Social workers are so overburdened that vulnerable people are unable to get the supports they need. Thousands of professional research staff are being employed under temporary contracts and dismissed when funding streams end. Post graduates and new graduates are unable to find jobs.

Social Welfare benefits have been cut and there are plans to increase taxation on the lower paid. There are 450,000 unemployed of which 100,000 are graduates and many have already emigrated.

There is an alternative to this.

National Community Platform representing 29 caring bodies has launched a programme of proposals focussed on taxing the assets and incomes of the very rich instead of cutting public services. The programme-4Steps 2 Recovery is available on website http://communityplatform.ie/publications.html

Further valuable material is available from TASC —an independent think-tank dedicated to combating Ireland’s high level of economic inequality and ensuring that public policy has equality at its core. Website http://www.tascnet.ie/showPage.php?ID=1

Government irresponsibly allowed Irish Banks to borrow 90 billion Euro abroad after 2003. Now the very rich must make a major contribution to providing a remedy through increased tax payments.

I contested the Seanad election (NUI Panel) on the last occasion with the support of Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and Irish Federation of University Teachers and received almost 1500 votes.

Of course, cuts in public services cannot be prevented by the Seanad. But those elected can play an important role as public advocates on behalf of the interest groups they represent.

Senator Joe O’Toole has used his position to promote the Croke Park Deal under which thousands of temporary staff have been dismissed and over 10,000 permanent public service posts have been eliminated causing serious damage to public services.

Senator Ronan Mullen has campaigned against reform of the law on same sex unions from a Catholic perspective. David Quinn, director of IONA Institute which supports Ronan has recently advocated cuts in public services.

Senator Fergal Quinn represents business interests.

A strong advocate for public services, for public servants, for employees generally and for the poor is urgently needed.

I am considering contesting the Seanad Election on the NUI panel when it takes place if sufficient support is available.

It is my intention if elected to use the position to enhance my work in organising public servants, employees generally and the poor to defend themselves against cuts and other oppressive policies. In pursuit of these objectives, I will be advocating increased taxation of the assets and incomes of the super-rich.

Above all a Registration Drive is needed immediately. A Registration Form can be downloaded at

http://www.nui.ie/elections/seanad-register.asp#reg1 Tá leagan gaeilge ar fáil ar an suíomh idirlín freisin.

If you wish to help with this work, please reply to this message or telephone me at 086-4183732