THE UNITE trade union has proposed a national strike to force the Government to change its economic strategy.

It is also urging unions to lead a campaign of civil disobedience which could involve refusal to pay service charges or any new water or property taxes introduced.

Irish regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said the union would put proposals for a national strike to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in the weeks ahead and would seek support from other unions.

He suggested that such action could start with a half-day stoppage “and building on that to the sort of strike action that will affect the incoming government”.

He said the country would soon be moving into a phase when political parties would be seeking support to form the next government. He said the key question was how to influence the next administration. He said he was convinced strike action had to be part of such a campaign.

“We are absolutely convinced that marching in the streets for the rest of this year and into next year will not achieve the pressure that we need to put on those politicians. We are saying we need to look at the alternative which is taking strike action as part of the protest.”

Unite’s proposals for a national strike came as it unveiled plans for a four-year €15 billion investment in the economy under what it called an alternative “people’s budget”. The money would come from current cash assets held by the National Treasury Management Agency and the National Pension Reserve Fund. Among the projects they earmarked for investment are broadband, water and waste networks, a preventive health initiative and education. The plan also includes proposals for an end to regressive tax incentives and calls for tax increases initially on higher earning groups.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has already signalled that its focus following last Saturday’s march in Dublin will be on a campaign to oppose the Government’s move to cut the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, the Department of Finance said yesterday while there was no formal scheme to allow civil servants to take a half-day shopping leave at Christmas, it was the custom in some organisations to allow the time off to some restricted grades. It said that this dated back to a time when shop opening hours were limited.

Earlier this week a member of staff in the Patents Office circulated an e-mail calling on all civil servants not to avail of this entitlement to Christmas shopping leave.

The email said it would be unacceptable in the current climate and would lead to further criticism from the media. The Department of Finance said that it did not know how many staff availed of the Christmas shopping leave.

Because it is not a formal arrangement, Christmas shopping leave does not feature in the reforms being proposed by management for the Civil Service under the Croke Park agreement.

Yesterday, the head of the implementation body for the Croke Park deal, PJ Fitzpatrick, said he was surprised such a practice could still exist.

In a separate move, the union representing lower-paid civil servants said it was not responsible for the row which has seen €20 million of electronic fingerprinting equipment unused for two years.

The CPSU said the Attorney General had now backed its legal advice that its members in the Garda National Immigration Bureau were not by law entitled to act as immigration officers.

The union said it had been informed by management that the equipment was to be used to track non-EU nationals making multiple applications in EU territories and to track international criminals using a link to Interpol data.

It said it had been advised at the time that CPSU members would be required to use data collected from the machine to scan Interpol and Garda lists to check for criminal records.