Labour and taxation: Irish employers are exploiting migrant foreign labour as much if not more than the Turkish construction company Gama, delegates were told.
SIPTU official Mike Jennings said one Irish haulage company refused to pay part of the costs of sending the body of a dead Polish employee home.
The man, a company driver, had left his lorry cab after he suffered a heart attack only to die shortly afterwards. The company, said Mr Jennings, had not "paid a cent to repatriate his body home because they said he was not working at the time because he had left his lorry".
Athlone delegate Adrian Kane said the Government's policy created divisions "between those who come to work here and those who live here".
Labour Wexford TBrendan Howlin said Ireland's reputation was "being sullied by exploitative companies like Gama".
"Ireland, which for so long exported our sons and daughters to be at the receiving end of the exploiter, must ensure that our own land does not become a place of exploitation itself."
SIPTU general secretary Jack O'Connor said the treatment of the Turkish workers by Gama was "no accident".
"It was, perhaps, an extreme example, but no accident. A policy has been developed to favour the interests of enterprise over workers."
Meanwhile delegates agreed a higher tax rate should be created for those earning over €100,000 a year. Condemning the "excessive and indefensible" taxation paid by PAYE earners, delegates demanded that the super-rich be forced to pay a minimum rate.
The Government was criticised for "its scandalous toleration and encouragement" of tax shelters which have allowed "wholesale tax avoidance" by many high-income earners.
Longford/Roscommon delegate Hugh Baxter said many of those who earn €500,000 a year pay just 5 per cent in tax, while others were able to exploit residency rules to avoid paying capital gains tax.
Fianna Fáil, he said, "favours the redistribution of wealth all right, but it goes from the less well-off to the well-off," said Mr Baxter.
Labour TD Joan Burton, who holds the finance portfolio, said Labour had "an ambitious social programme" that would have to be paid for by taxation.
"The price tag will be high, and even when we take the chronic record of mismanagement and waste of this Government out of the equation we will still need to find a lot of money to meet the needs we have set out in our agenda."
Dublin West delegate John Walsh said Fianna Fáil's "core principle is to provide privileged treatment for their supporters".
Arklow-based councillor Bernie O'Halloran proposed an independent body to award Lottery funds rather than leaving it to the Government.
Sligo/Leitrim delegate Veronica Cawley urged changes to the tax system so lone parents were not penalised if they entered a permanent relationship.
