The first meeting between the Irish Congress of Trade Union's public service committee and the Department of Finance to discuss implementation of the benchmarking body's report on public service pay made little progress, beyond a broad agreement on pensions, yesterday.
Further talks have been arranged for this day week.
The unions were seeking early confirmation from the Government that the benchmarking recommendations would be implemented without delay - and not just the 25 per cent backdated to December 2001 which they insist the Government pledged would be forthcoming immediately.
The Government side yesterday confirmed that increases would apply to public service pensioners, but little else.
Mr Peter McLoone, IMPACT general secretary and chairman of the PSC, welcomed this assurance.
"Prominent opponents of the benchmarking process have been scaremongering," he said, "by saying that pensioners would lose out. The ICTU has always insisted that pensioners should benefit."
Under existing arrangements, public service pensioners receive the same percentage increases as State employees working in the grades from which they retired. The same formula will apply to benchmarking increases.
Yesterday's meeting lasted less than an hour. The Department's position was that the report must be "viewed in its entirety" and emphasised that it did not want to reopen negotiations in respect of the benchmarking body's findings. "We want to see an agreed centralised approach," a spoke-sman said.
Crucially, the unions were told payment of the first 25 per cent was conditional on general acceptance of the report. Talks on implementation of a time-frame for payment of the remaining 75 per cent are likely to be contentious, however, linked as they are to agreement on modernisation and a change in work practices as recommended in the report.
The Department agreed that €150 million was provided in the last Budget to cover any public service increases arising from benchmarking in the current year.
The unions' argument is that in net terms this would cover the 25 per cent increase payable by the Exchequer once the income tax paid by public servants who would benefit was taken into account.
However, the Department argued that conclusions based on this arithmetic were flawed as the estimates are computed on a gross basis.
The Government side included representatives of the Department of Health, the Department of the Environment, the Department of Finance, and the Health Service Employers Agency.
The union side was led by Mr McLoone, with Mr Dan Murphy of the Public Service Executive Union and Mr Mat Merrigan of SIPTU.