THE INTRODUCTION of greater flexibility within and between Government departments and an end to demarcations are necessary to avoid public sector pay cuts, Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has warned.
A progress report on the Croke Park deal on public sector pay and reform is due this month and Mr Rabbitte said both management and unions had to understand “the gravity of the position we’re in”.
It was the “united commitment” of the Government parties that basic pay rates would not be reduced again, but unless there was “meaningful progress” on reform, the EU-ECB-IMF troika would insist on cuts.
Government sources were reluctant to comment on Mr Rabbitte’s remarks but stressed the Coalition’s position on basic pay was unchanged. “Croke Park protects it, on condition that reform is introduced,” said one source.
It is understood from other sources that the assessment of the Croke Park process will show that the targets for savings and reforms are being met and that public sector numbers fell by 2,500-3,000 in the first quarter of this year.
“All the indications are that it is delivering the savings set out for it to achieve and that a lot of flexibility has come into the Civil Service,” according to a senior political source.
Tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting is expected to discuss the forthcoming jobs initiative, tentatively scheduled to be announced on May 10th by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.
The range of measures is expected to include scrapping the controversial travel tax for air passengers introduced in the October 2009 budget.
Originally set at €10, the levy was cut to €3 in the last budget. A commitment to scrap it, subject to a deal with airlines to reopen closed routes, was contained in the programme for government.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny flies to New York tomorrow to convey his message to Wall Street investors, financial journalists and the Irish-American business community that “Ireland is open for business”.
He addresses 1,200 guests at the American Ireland Fund charity dinner on Thursday night where the boxer Muhammad Ali, who has an ancestral connection with Ennis, Co Clare, will receive an award for humanitarian work.
During his brief visit Mr Kenny will press his pro-investment message home on the weekly television programme Out of Ireland, which is broadcast throughout the US.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Rabbitte said the Government had a "united commitment" to avoid "revisiting" basic pay in the public sector. But he added: "If we don't make meaningful progress at Croke Park, the troika will insist on savings being made elsewhere.
“Personally, I don’t think that the great bulk of public servants can take another hit, but the corollary is that both sides, management and unions in the public service, have to understand the gravity of the position we’re in.”
He said both sides “have to ensure that substantial progress is made in the way we deliver quality public services and an end to demarcations and [the introduction of] greater flexibilities and a facility to transfer people”.
“If there is a huge pressure on [the Department of] Social Protection, for example, and less so on Agriculture, or wherever you want to pick, then we have to be able to transfer people to where [they are] needed and retrain people.
“It is better, I think, that Ministers explain that to people, not in any threatening way, but the previous government didn’t explain the implications of the fact that the economy had run aground.
“I think we should explain now, before the Croke Park process reports, the importance of the issues that they are dealing with, so that we don’t have to revisit basic pay,” the Minister said.