Holding the line on public sector pay

The Lansdowne Road public pay deal is under increasing pressure. The Labour Court recommendation in relation to Garda pay has contributed to opening up demands elsewhere. While the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland suspended strike action, this may resume if a deal is not done. And now SIPTU, the State's biggest union, has called for talks on accelerated pay restoration to commence by the start of February. Otherwise, it says, it will mandate any group covered by Lansdowne Road to ballot for strike action.

Public servants are already benefiting from partial restoration of pay, on a phased basis, under Lansdowne. They also benefit from job security, good pensions and many get automatic annual pay rises through increments. Nobody disputes that they should gain from a recovering economy. But the problem is scarce resources.

SIPTU president Jack O’Connor says the Government can afford an increase. And he is correct in arguing that a decision could be made to put resources towards extra pay. But doing so would mean either less cash to spend elsewhere or higher taxes, either immediately or soon enough. And agreeing this before the promised public pay commission has had time to benchmark current public pay levels is not the right approach.

A new – and logical – basis is needed to agree public sector pay and pensions. The alternative is a free-for-all, where all sides use their industrial muscle. Is that really what the trade union movement wants? It is certainly not what is best for the country, taking the obvious point that public pay must be paid for from cash raised from taxes.

The SIPTU president’s argument that the Budget could have freed resources to direct money more quickly into the pockets of his members remains unproven. The Government has said it will stick to Lansdowne Road and has promised a new process to determine public pay increases. It needs to hold the line. Perhaps an instinct for self-preservation will stiffen its resolve in facing down what is an unreasonably framed demand from SIPTU.