Brian Cowen’s attendance at the €1,300-a-table bosses’ banquet is a symbol of where the real power lies in Ireland.
The IBEC President’s annual dinner brings together the top capitalists who will be cheering on Cowen because he is like a puppet who dances to their tune.
IBEC can congratulate themselves on a successful recession where they have used ‘shock doctrine’ tactics, attacking union rights to protect their profits.
In February 2008, they stated that, “wage levels require a downward correction of the order of 10 percent”, even though openly acknowledging “a further deflationary effect on the economy in 2009 and 2010”.
Cowen and the FF-Green government did what they were told and launched a vicious attack on public sector wages.
The first attack came in the form of a ‘pension levy’ which IBEC had long advocated. The second attack involved a straight-forward reduction in pay.
This set a benchmark for IBEC members in the private sector to follow and so Ireland took the lead in Europe in attacking workers’ wages.
IBEC then targeted cuts on social welfare recipients. IBEC stated that “In light of the predicted decline in living standards … all social welfare rates should be immediately reduced by 3 percent.”
Once again the FF-Green government did exactly what they were told.
IBEC’s latest target is the minimum wage, which they claim has, “a negative impact on our competitive edge”.
The minimum wage is paid to just 5 percent of the Irish workforce who are mainly concentrated in the retail and hotel sectors. If it is applied to all employers, it could not make one employer less competitive than the other.
But IBEC’s propaganda wars are based only on the logic of an international race-to-the-bottom in the narrow pursuit of profits.
IBEC also wants to change Section 41 of the Minimum Wage Act of 2000.
This allows employers to claim inability to pay, provided a majority of workers agree.
IBEC wants to exclude their workers’ right to disagree.
IBEC has also opposed any legislation guaranteeing union recognition. Its board members include the bosses of Hewlett Packard and Microsoft, two US companies totally opposed to unions.
Once again the Irish government puppets complied, refusing to give workers a right to join a union, exposing the absurd claims by SIPTU’s Jack O’Connor that the Lisbon Treaty would force them to do so.

Who are IBEC?
IBEC is the Irish Business and Employers Confederation.
The board of IBEC includes notorious banker, Eugene Sheehy, the former CEO of Allied Irish Bank.
Sheehy has retired on a pension of €526,000 a year, the equivalent of an average wage of 15 workers.
Another key figure is Gary McCann, a recent TASC report named as one of the ten most connected company directors.
McCann not only sat on the board of Anglo-Irish Bank but is also a director of Smurfit, United Drug and the Dublin Airport Authority.
Front man for IBEC today is Danny McCoy, a former professional economist with the ESRI, where he regularly recommended wage restraint.
IBEC is organised around a set of ‘policy committees’ lobbying government to ensure a pro-employer policy is adopted. IBEC’s ‘sensible rules group’ pushed light business regulation while their ‘economics and taxation group’ has helped ensure that Ireland remains a tax haven for the rich.
IBEC gets €1 million a year from semi-state bodies for ‘professional advice’ on how to undermine workers’ claims.
IBEC: The Lobby Machine
IBEC’s tentacles spread into every nook and cranny of the Irish State.
The HSE board (see page 3) is dominated by business people so it is easy to see why they favoured the ‘co-location policy’ to push private hospitals.
Half of the former board of Fas were IBEC members and at one stage it was chaired by Brian Geoghan, the director of economic policy at IBEC and husband of Mary Harney. Geoghan set up a PR company, MRPA Kinman, which lobbied his wife, the Minister of Health, about restrictions on the drinks industry.
IBEC even gets an input into the mathematics curriculum in the schools because everything in the Irish State is designed to suit business interests.
The Right to Work protest at the IBEC dinner on the 23rd of June will help to shine a light on one of the most sinister and dangerous organisations in Irish society.