TRADE UNION DESK: Government must show more vision for working people
Unprecedented wealth has a way of making the urgent seem optional. Ireland is living proof of this. Alongside booming exchequer accounts, for several years now, there have been increasingly pressing warnings from the Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC), Central Bank, and ESRI about Ireland’s over-reliance on the corporate tax regime, writes Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) General Secretary Owen Reidy.
February 2026 brought perhaps the starkest warning: almost half of all corporate tax receipts, around €13 billion, are down to just three US multinationals here. For context, that is the entire annual budget for the Department of Education resting on decisions made in three boardrooms thousands of miles away.
The risks, particularly in the current global context, are obvious. The Government will point to the money that they are squirrelling away for a rainy day, but given IFAC has also pointed out that the Government plans to spend 90 per cent of the corporate tax windfall, we better hope that it does not rain too hard.
All of this is emblematic of an approach from the Government that is defined by a short-term managerialism. There is no sense of a vision for what Ireland could or should be in future, particularly after the windfall, no sense of how to buttress the economy against possible shocks. In fact, for the Government, there does not seem to be a future at all, only a series of present political moments with which to deal.
Speak to a government minister about jobs or the economy, and they will most likely point to the fact that the country is currently at full employment. This is undoubtedly a positive, but it should not be where their ambition ends.
Given the wealth in the country and the obvious risks in the Irish economic model, they should not pass up the opportunity to create a more robust economy while improving the working lives of people in Ireland.
The goal is not to abandon foreign direct investment (FDI). It is to minimise risk to workers and the economy by supplementing FDI with high-growth indigenous industry.
Good jobs
Ireland is not operating in a vacuum. The European Commission is proposing its Quality Jobs Roadmap, published in December 2025. The British Government recently passed the Employment Rights Act; the biggest overhaul of employment law in decades. The Northern Ireland Executive is currently designing a Good Jobs Bill. Every comparable jurisdiction is focused on improving job quality. Ireland is the exception.
The idea of a ‘good job’ is nuanced. It reflects not just pay, but the full breadth of a person’s work: that demands are not excessive, employment is secure, the workplace is safe, there is opportunity for union representation, and there is a solid work-life balance.
Research from UCD professor John Geary and the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI) suggests around a quarter of jobs in Ireland can be defined as ‘good jobs’, a quarter as poor quality jobs, and the remainder somewhere in between as outlined in Job quality in Ireland, published in December 2025. Polling from Ireland Thinks commissioned by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions found that 52 per cent of people feel their pay does not reflect the level of work they do.
In February 2026, ICTU launched its new report, Quality Employment and Good Jobs. The report is an attempt to broaden the debate and show what an ambitious vision for the Irish economy and Irish workers could look like. Part of this is a focus on workers themselves, but it is also considering what is good for the broader economy.
The Government has a choice in what types of jobs and industries it chooses to back. Tax breaks to industries that pay poorly and have high turnover of staff is not a good investment. The view of the trade union movement is that government should support industries where we know there are good quality jobs.
The windfall will not last forever. When it goes, the question will be asked why the Government chose not to adapt while it had the chance. Ireland has a golden opportunity now, with wealth in the country and a public keen for certainty, to shape its own future.
Owen Reidy has been General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) since October 2022.
