Croke Park savings target ‘may not be achieved’ this year

Minister of State Brian Hayes has given the Government's first public indication that it may not generate €300 million in savings on the public service pay and pensions bill this year under talks on a revision to the Croke Park II agreement.

Speaking this afternoon he said the key issue for the Government would be to secure €1 billion in savings by 2015.

He said the €300 million savings target was still an ambition. However he said some trade unions had put forward alternative proposals and that these may not deliver the full level of savings for this year, but could produce them by 2014 or 2015.

Mr Hayes said the Government would be “rigidly sticking” to its target of generating €1 billion in savings on its pay and pensions bill by 2015.

The Government had previously maintained that its budgetary arithmetic for this year was based on generating €300 million in savings on its pay and pensions bill.

Since the rejection of the Croke Park II agreement by trade unions last month, the Labour Relations Commission has been meeting with various groups in the public service.

The chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey said last week that 10 unions opposed to the original Croke Park II agreement last week were now "potentially looking at it afresh in a more positive disposition towards agreeing to the details that have been negotiated with them during the week".

A number of these “agreements in principle” contain terms that are far less onerous than those set out in the Croke Park II proposals that were rejected.

For example where previously the payment of increments for higher earners would have been frozen for three years, these would now be paid, albeit after a six-month pause.

Nursing unions were offered a deal which would allow them to retain their existing double time premium payment for working on a Sunday.

The full text of these agreements in principle has not yet been published. However no detail has emerged of any offsetting measures to balance out the additional cost of new concessions awarded to unions.

On Friday The Irish Times asked the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform whether it was still its position that €300 million would be saved this year and €1 billion over three years on the public service pay and pensions bill from the measures set out to the public service unions under the new Labour Relations Commission process.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform did not specifically answer the question but instead said on April 23rd the Government had reaffirmed the need to take early measures to secure the savings of €300 million from the pay and pensions bill identified for 2013, which was part of the €1 billion required by 2015.

Separately, senior Government sources have said it could not meet the demands set out by Siptu in its talks at the Labour Relations Commission.

Health service unions as well as those representing staff in the Civil Service are taking part in talks at the Labour Relations Commission today.

Teaching unions are to attend talks at the Labour Relations Commission tomorrow.