The Irish Congress of Trade Unions last week told EU parliamentarians that the troika mission to Ireland repeatedly violated core European Union principles of solidarity and social dialogue. ICTU was giving evidence to an inquiry into how troika conducted its missions in Ireland and elsewhere.

Addressing the EU parliamentary team’s hearings in Dublin, ICTU assistant general secretary Sally Anne Kinahan also reiterated the unions’ call for the EU to deliver on its promise to reduce the level of bank debt transferred to the Irish people. Ireland has borne over 42% of the cost of the European bank debt crisis, with every Irish citizen paying €9,000 on average so far. The average per capita cost across 27 member states is less than €200.

Ms Kinahan said solidarity and social dialogue were enshrined as core principles in many EU treaties. Yet they were repeatedly violated and ignored in the actions and operations of the troika.

“Solidarity was absent in the mission’s determination to ensure that the blame for the crisis and the entire burden of adjustment fell on working people who neither caused the crisis nor benefited greatly from the false boom that preceded it. The failure to engage in social dialogue saw a point blank refusal to countenance all but one policy prescription - grinding austerity - despite the abundance of evidence proving it to be counterproductive. There were regular meetings with Congress, but no real dialogue,” she said.

ICTU said it welcomed the EU parliamentary inquiry but said it had arrived at least three years too late. “During the troika years, Ireland was subjected to a painful ideological experiment whose aim was to engineer the shrinking of the state along with the erosion of labour rights and the wider European social model. The troika’s legacy is high unemployment, weakened social provision, frightening levels of emigration and the prospect of a lost generation of youth, along with an entirely unpayable debt, “she said.