ALTHOUGH THE GOVERNMENT has yet to decide how to spend the €1 billion savings from the recent promissory note deal, SIPTU is calling on them to invest in job creation and economic growth.
Jack O’Connor, SIPTU General President, told a Wexford District Council meeting this evening that the Government should use this opportunity ”to abandon the misery of one-sided austerity and launch a stimulus plan for jobs and growth”.
They are also calling for the €500 million cut in social welfare that is scheduled for Budget 2014 to be scrapped and they want the Government to put money back into the health service and to spend on lower and middle income families.
The rest of the €1 billion plus savings should then be used to help people who are unable to pay their mortgages and are in danger of losing their home said O’Connor.
Further to those suggestions, SIPTU wants to treble the Government’s existing infrastructure stimulus plan of €2.25 billion that was announced last July following the State’s improved credit rating thanks to the promissory note deal.
O’Connor adds: “Each €1 billion spent on infrastructure would yield 10,000 jobs and every 20,000 reduction in the Live Register would save the Exchequer €1 billion on social transfers.”
Deployment of the savings accompanied by a major stimulus initiative would enable “the State to meet its 3 per cent deficit target by the end of 2015 without subjecting our people to further misery,” said O’Connor.
However, the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny says it’s too early to predict the promissory note impact on Budget 2014.
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