The Government is to meet the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation today in an effort to salvage Partnership 2000. There are mounting signs that agreement between the Government and unions will be difficult to achieve.
The ICTU general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells, said yesterday the trade union movement was committed to trying to find a solution to current problems, but if the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, had proposed the meeting "to give us a dressing down on pay, he would be better cancelling it now".
Recent scandals had changed the public mood, and people wanted to see the wealth they were generating more equitably shared.
He was responding to comments by Mr McCreevy on RTE's This Week earlier in the day that the Exchequer would have a £5.8 billion surplus this year, but that conceding the sort of pay increases sought by nurses and other public service workers would "wreck the Celtic Tiger".
However, a spokesman for the Government said later: "This is not about taking on DART drivers, nurses or anybody else. It is about defending partnership and the benefits that have come with it."
This is the message the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, are expected to relay to both unions and employers when they meet them, along with Mr McCreevy, this afternoon.
However, the director-general of the IBEC, Mr John Dunne, welcomed the Government's stance. He is expected to tell the Government today that order needs to be restored to the public service pay process if social partnership is to be preserved.
"We've had a whole series of provisions in national agreements relating to public service pay which have been abused," Mr Dunne said. "What is happening in the public service can't continue, or it threatens arrangements across all sectors."
In his interview Mr McCreevy focused on public sector pay demands which are threatening to lead to widespread industrial strife in the next few weeks.
The first challenge will come on Thursday, when Dublin Bus workers stage the first of a series of rolling strikes in pursuit of a 20 per cent pay rise.
On Saturday around 300 non-consultant hospital doctors braved heavy rain to march through Dublin in protest at long hours and low rates of pay. Although the action was not officially supported by the Irish Medical Organisation, which is currently engaged in talks on a wide range of issues with the Health Service Employers Agency, the IMO's industrial relations executive, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said that, for the first time in living memory, "the Government cannot reasonably argue that financial resources are not there to meet our demands.
"Hospital doctors showed restraint in the past, when times were hard," he said. "They should now be rewarded."
Several other public service groups, including dentists, DART drivers, teachers and gardai are also set to test public service pay policy. However, the most critical group remains the State's 27,500 nurses, who are expected to reject a £100 million Labour Court award when their ballot concludes on September 22nd.
Nurses' pay is expected to be the central issue the Government will seek to address at today's meeting, but Mr Cassells was offering no quick fixes.
"Congress is committed to finding solutions to the current problems, and to finding new ways of keeping our prosperity and social partnership going," he said.
"But if the Minister for Finance believes that the purpose of the meeting is to give us a dressing down on pay he would be better off cancelling the meeting now. The Minister appears to believe that social partnership is about nothing more than pay restraint.
"We all must face up to the fact that this country and social partnership are now at a crossroads. The national mood has been changed by the various tribunals and scandals, including scandals at the very highest levels.
"We believe that it is possible to keep our prosperity going, but that prosperity must be shared more fairly and the budget surplus used to improve living standards and invest in services for vulnerable groups such as the elderly, people with disabilities and the homeless."