The General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has said recent statements from IBEC suggest that social partnership is over. David Begg said it looks like employers do not want to go forward with another agreement.
Mr Begg was speaking after the employers' group's Director of Economic Policy told a conference on social partnership that IBEC members believe that entry to a new agreement would be futile and misleading.
However, a Government spokesman this evening urged the social partners not to give up on the prospects of a new national agreement before negotiations have started. The spokesman said the benefits of social partnership were there for all to see.
Mr Begg's views were earlier backed up by the Government's economic think-tank, which said that social partnership as we know it is over. The Economic and Social Research Institute said that Ireland is now heading for a wages free-for-all and that a wage-price-spiral has the potential to erode many of the significant achievements of the Irish economy in recent years.
It called for tax increases and spending controls to protect public finances. The ESRI said that a return to local bargaining will not result in modest wage increases, which could pose a problem for the economy at the moment.
The ESRI said that inflation is the biggest threat to the economy in the short term.
It also warned that the rapid deterioration in public finances must be arrested. It says the Government is on course to miss its financial targets for this year by almost €1bn and it forecasted even larger deficits for the next two years.
According to the ESRI, the only solution is a combination of tax increases and curbs on spending.
In a separate development, a leading economist has said there is "strong evidence" that the euro changeover was used as an opportunity to push through price rises in many sectors of the economy.
Friends First economist Jim Power said the watching brief promised by consumer groups and Government to protect consumers had proved "quite ineffective".
