The public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) is to meet on Monday to discuss strategy following the collapse of talks with the Government.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen said yesterday the Government would press ahead with pay cuts of €1.3 billion across the public service after it rejected a trade union proposal for savings to be made through staff taking unpaid leave
The decision to reject the unpaid leave proposal came after strong opposition at Cabinet to acceptance of the plan from Mr Lenihan and the two Green Party Ministers, John Gormley and Eamon Ryan. A number of Fianna Fáil backbenchers also raised objections.
Mr Cowen indicated last night that public servants now face a pay cut of between 5 and 6 per cent in next Wednesday’s budget after the negotiations failed.
Under the unpaid leave proposal put forward by unions, public sector workers would have agreed to take 12 days’ unpaid leave next year and would then later come up with a separate proposal to cover 2011.
According to estimates, the unpaid leave deal would have entailed public service staff earning €50,000 having 4.6 per cent of their income deducted next year. For workers earning more than this amount the cut would have been equivalent to up to 7 per cent of income.
Speaking today, Green Party senator Dan Boyle said the proposal on unpaid leave was never going to be a permanent solution and it was not a long-term solution to tackling the costs involved in the public service.
"Budgetary cuts in the public service were only short- and medium-term. The decisions we make have to be deep and long-term,” he told RTÉ radio. He said a decision on across-the-board cuts had not been made yet and that this should come early next week.
Questioned on whether the Greens took into account the swing in public opinion against the proposal, Mr Boyle said his party would have expressed its concerns over the plan during Cabinet meetings.
Unions yesterday claimed the Government’s reform agenda would in effect be dead in the water if any pay cuts were imposed. Ictu said the deal would have saved billions of euro and, in some cases, extended current levels of some public services.