The Government will not be buying out existing leave arrangements for staff in the public service, Minister for Public Service Reform Brendan Howlin said today.
Speaking at the Impact conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, he promised standardise annual leave and working time arrangements, and to address what he described as "traditional but over generous" entitlements that had grown up.
The Minister confirmed the Government had in recent days opened negotiations with trade unions on new leave arrangements. He said what was likely to emerge was a twin-track position that would involve new "ceilings and floors" for leave entitlements for serving personnel and revised lower leave arrangements for new entrants.
Mr Howlin said he wanted the public service to have leave entitlements that were analogous to the private sector. However, he acknowledged this could not be achieved instantly.
The Government has not yet spelled out the minimum and maximum numbers of days off it envisages for staff under its plan.
The move follows the controversy over leave for local authority managers, where some have up to 42 days each year, and the rejection by an arbitration board of changes to traditional privilege days for civil servants proposed by the Department of Finance.
Mr Howlin said last month the rate of leave had “got out of sync with the norm in some areas and these will be looked at”. The department said last night it had written to the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions about introducing standardised leave.
Earlier this year, the Department of the Environment and the Local Government Management Services Board proposed under the Croke Park deal a standardised leave arrangement be put in place nationwide for local authority personnel. This would range from 23 to 32 days. However, this proposal and another to introduce a standardised working week has faced opposition from trade unions.
Last month, senior local authority managers said they would back a limit of 32 days.
A wide variety of annual leave arrangements applies to local authorities. There are different rules for privilege days available to staff. Some of the additional leave arrangements stem from local agreements several years ago to “buy out” staff entitlements to days off to mark church holidays.
Different levels of entitlements also apply to staff in the health and vocational education sectors.
There is already a two-tier pay structure in the public service following the decision last December to reduce rates by 10 per cent for new entrants. Senior union sources confirmed last night a letter had been received from the Department of Finance earlier this week inviting them to engage on the issue of leave arrangements.
Meanwhile, the head of the Labour Relations Commission has said the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform is an organic deal and some things may have to be jettisoned or added.
However, he said the essentials had to remain. Kieran Mulvey said the parties to the Croke Park agreement should come together after the current review and assess what has been achieved and highlight where the logjams are to further reform.