Latest pay talks likely for Thursday

INVITATIONS FROM Taoiseach Brian Cowen to trade union leaders and employers to meet to agree on a new round of social partnership talks have yet to be issued, though a meeting is thought likely to be held on Thursday.

So far, both sides are agreeable to further negotiations, though they are far apart on pay, collective bargaining rights and a host of other issues, while the cash-strapped Government equally has an interest in pay restraint.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is likely to agree to talks only if they are subject to "a very short" deadline, said its general secretary David Begg, reflecting union fears that a delay could amount to a pay freeze by default.

Last night, a spokesman for the Government said no decision on the arrangements for the expected meeting in Government Buildings had yet been made, nor was it clear whether it would be chaired by the Taoiseach rather than by the Government secretary general Dermot McCarthy.

Ibec director general Turlough O'Sullivan said a time limit on the talks would be "very helpful".

However, he again ruled out any possibility that employers could grant above-par pay rises to lower-paid workers, or "so-called lower-paid workers", as he described them.

Such workers, he said, were in the main employed by small- and medium-sized enterprises, or by hotels and retailers: "They are the very employers that are hurting the most in the economic downturn.

"You can't ask [them] to pay more than everybody else."