The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has strongly criticised Government proposals for tax cuts as deliberate sleight of hand that transfers the cost of basic services back to the individual.

Opening the ICTU Biennial Conference in Dublin, President Sheila Nunan warned that Ireland could not build quality universal public services if the tax base was eroded.

She said the notion of lowering the tax base for workers had superficial appeal, but was in effect giving with one hand and taking more with the other.

She cautioned that while wages and conditions of employment remained the top priority for unions, they must be combined with enhancing non-pay returns to workers through the social wage, which is low in Ireland by European standards.

She said the social wage was the key to promoting equality and a mechanism for distributing wealth.

Ms Nunan told 700 delegates that paying for services such as child care or securing health insurance would eat up multiples of any reduced income tax.

She added that boosting the social wage came at a substantial cost, but ICTU argued that the overall level of revenue collected by the State should be expanded.

She noted that the world of work was changing through digitalisation, artificial intelligence, the gig economy and insecure work, which were often accompanied by a deterioration in working conditions.

She told delegates that something was wrong when someone can work full-time yet struggle to pay their rent, childcare or other basic needs.

Ms Nunan highlighted a number of pressures diminishing the lives of workers and their families, including lower pension entitlements, a two-tier health system, privatisation of early years care and education, higher transport costs and under-investment in public services.

She also stressed the importance of challenging the gender pay gap, which is often compounded by part-time work driven by childminding responsibilities in the absence of affordable childcare.

She highlighted the importance of organising workers in those gendered sectors of low pay, and securing collective bargaining rights for them.

Ms Nunan also launched a broadside at the Government's policy on housing, warning it would lead to a "locked out generation".

She said that while the cranes were back on the skyline, they were serving the interests of vulture funds hoovering up all available land and property, and commanding prices beyond the reach of most, while working people and their families were struggling to find secure roofs over their heads.

She noted that Dublin house prices were on average between nine and 14 times the average salary, while prices nationally have increased by 80% since the low point of the recession.

She said it was boom time for landlords and bust time for those seeking the security of their own home.

Ms Nunan accused the Government of deliberate political choices leading to the creeping commodification of the basic right to housing, and a withdrawal of the State from delivering a public housing programme, adding that the provision of rent supplements for private renters over the provision of public housing and long-term cost rental provision had worsened the situation.



Citing criticisms from the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Ms Nunan said the current homeless statistics should be a source of deep shame to the Government.

She called for better investment in social and affordable housing, and praised the work of the Raise the Roof campaign.

Ms Nunan described Brexit as a darkening cloud over the island of Ireland, with an enormous risk to employment, and a negative knock-on effect on the economy in the event of the UK crashing out.

She reiterated congress's call for contingency planning for vulnerable employment through a Brexit adjustment fund and warned that it posed grave challenges to members in Northern Ireland.

She also cautioned that the political vacuum was continuing to undermine an increasingly fragile peace process, with the murder of Lyra McKee acting as a reminder of its deadly consequences.