Discussions on a new partnership agreement are continuing at Government Buildings tonight as delegations from the employers' group, IBEC, and the Congress of Trade Unions attempt to reach a compromise amidst growing pessimism.
Speaking on RTE television this evening, the Director General of IBEC, MR Turlough O'Sullivan, said he was pessimistic and he accused the ICTU President, Mr Joe O'Toole heightening tension by carrying out negotiations over the air waves at the weekend.
A Government spokesperson said that "talks and contacts between the parties were ongoing" but declined to comment on when a breakthrough, if any, might be found.
The unions' demand for cost-of-living pay rises and employers' insistence on a six-month pay pause has proved to be the main sticking point so far as the Government tries to break the impasse between the two.
Unions in the private sector will start preparing pay claims at local level if no agreement with employers can be reached by Wednesday. Local bargaining has not been seen since the 1980s.
President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Sen Joe O'Toole said last night that if there was a return to free-for-all bargaining, a new social partnership deal, to succeed the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), would become impossible to achieve.
"If anybody thinks it's just a matter of the talks breaking down and then everybody coming back together, they are mistaken," Sen O'Toole told The Irish Times. "If it goes beyond Wednesday the situation will be irretrievable".
Sen O'Toole said Wednesday is the critical day because the executive council of ICTU would be meeting then to advise its member-unions whether they should start preparing pay claims.
The time and venue of today's talks are still not yet known.