DUBLIN (Dow Jones)--Thousands of people marched through central Dublin Saturday to protest the Irish government's plan to make EUR15 billion in budget cuts over the next four years and urge it to do more to generate growth and jobs in the debt-laden economy.
One of the organizers of the march, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, an umbrella group representing some 800,000 workers across the island of Ireland, said the government still has time to change course before it announces its budget on Dec. 7, where it plans to set out EUR6 billion of budget cuts.
"This is a really important opportunity for the government to be shown visually how people feel about what it is that they are doing," Sally Anne Kinahan, ICTU assistant general secretary, said ahead of the march. "The biggest failure on the part of government...is the fact that they have done nothing to stimulate jobs."
Faced with a debt crisis following the collapse of the country's banking system, Ireland's government is carrying out severe budget cuts and is negotiating a multi-billion euro support package with the International Monetary Fund, European Union, and European Central Bank which is expected is coming days.
On Wednesday it announced details of a four-year plan, including EUR10 billion in expenditure cuts and EUR5 billion in tax measures to slash the country's budget deficit to below the EU limit of 3% of gross domestic product by 2014 from an expected 32% this year.
The measures include lowering the minimum wage, cutting public sector jobs, salaries, and pensions, reducing social welfare spending, increasing sales tax to 23% by 2014 from 21%, and widening the income tax base.
Shay Cody, the general secretary of IMPACT, Ireland's largest public sector union, said the government's four-year plan is driven by an obsession to bail out "zombie banks" rather than the need to stimulate economic activity to create jobs and get the public finances back in balance.
But despite Ireland announcing some of the harshest budget consolidation measures in Europe, the ICTU appears to have little appetite for industrial action of the kind seen in countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece that have also been subjected to tough austerity measures.
"I don't think the right focus at the moment will be on industrial action, it is on political action looking at the forthcoming general election," Kinahan said. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has said a general election will be called in the New Year.
However, some left-leaning groups would like to see Irish unions go further.
"They need to escalate and do strike action rather than just marching people around the town," said Brid Smith, a local government official in a working class suburb west of Dublin for People Before Profit, a small left-wing grass-roots political grouping. "People understand that there is such a thing as collective power, but it has never been mobilized."
She said the government should reverse its austerity measures and introduce heavier taxes on the wealthy people who profited most during the boom years that earned Ireland the name as the Celtic Tiger. She also says bond holders should bare a greater share of the losses.
Irish police said ahead of the march that they were expecting a peaceful protest, but were prepared to deal with any disturbances.
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