Analysis: Government facing test of commitment to pay policy

The Government is now facing the most serious challenge to its entire public service pay policy.

Only last weekend it appeared it had succeeded in a strategy of bringing in groups such as gardaí and most teachers – who remained outside the Lansdowne Road agreement – into the fold.

This strategy also had the objective of isolating the more militant Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) – whose members had rejected the accord – into having to fight on alone.

However, by Wednesday evening, this strategy had unravelled, leaving the Government facing not only potential industrial action by second-level teachers, which could close schools towards the end of October, but also the politically and legally explosive prospect of effective strike action by gardaí in November.

‘Only show in town’

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform,

Paschal Donohoe

, and other members of the Cabinet have said repeatedly that the Lansdowne Road agreement was “the only show in town” with regard to public service pay.

The Government’s response to the prospect of industrial action by teachers and gardaí in the weeks ahead will show how far it is prepared to go in defending the agreement – which is the centrepiece of its entire public pay policy.

The Lansdowne Road agreement began the process of reversing the two – and in some cases three – pay cuts which public service staff have experienced since 2009.

The deal provided for pay restoration worth about €2,000 by 2018.

All public servants including those in unions and associations not signed up to the Lansdowne Road deal received the first tranche of €1,000 from January this year.

Over recent months the Government has also moved to end the two-tier pay structure for recent entrants to the public service in return for unions signing up to the Lansdowne Road deal and agreeing to implement reform measures.

Deals reached

This arrangement formed the basis of deals reached with firefighters, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and the Teachers’ Union of Ireland over recent months.

It was also central to the deal the Government thought it had secured with the Garda Representative Association (GRA) last weekend.

However, the Lansdowne Road agreement did not reverse the full extent of pay cuts for public service.

The various cuts to pay and staffing levels reduced the public service pay and pensions bill by €2.3 billion. The Lansdowne Road accord provides for pay restoration of about €960 million over three years. Full pay restoration would cost the Government about €1 billion more and Ministers have argued this could not be afforded in one go.

The GRA has argued its members have a uniquely dangerous and difficult job and it wants greater levels of pay restoration than set out in the Lansdowne Road agreement.

However, while the Lansdowne Road agreement has been accepted by unions representing about 250,000 staff across the public service, other groups of public servants also see themselves as “unique” or “special”.

The Government will be very conscious that additional pay rises to gardaí will lead to other groups seeking similar awards.