The social partners have lost touch with smaller businesses, the head of the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland (CCI) said yesterday.
CCI president Mr Mark Staunton was laying out five areas he feels must be tackled in the current national pay negotiations. "Normally, we would not be so vocal on this issue but we feel the track record of the Government, IBEC and ICTU shows they have lost touch with the realities for SMEs," he told CCI's national business forum in Portlaoise.
Mr Staunton said the minimum wage should remain fixed at €7 an hour for the second half of Sustaining Progress. He also called for a six-month pay pause at the start of the second half of the agreement (which begins for the private sector in July), as the 3 per cent national pay rise due was higher than the expected rate of inflation for 2004.
Mr Staunton, whose organisation represents more than 12,000 businesses, also called on the Government to deliver on its "ludicrously low target" of a 5,000 cut in the number of public servants.
Mr Tom Parlon, Minister of State at the Department of Finance, told the conference that calls for a higher corporation tax rate here were "terribly short-sighted". Low tax has stimulated economic activity, he said.
Budgetary independence must be defended at an EU level, he added, as each state has a right to defend its own fiscal model.
"We will vigorously defend our right to determine our own taxation rates," he added.
The Government should continue to promote deregulation of professions and industries, Mr Parlon said.
