'Nobody treated unfairly' under deal

Nobody was being treated unfairly under the new Croke Park deal, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said today.

He said the outcome of the Labour Relations Commission's paper would achieve a good balance of equity across the public service.

Essentially it seeks to ensure that those who earn most pay most, he added.

Mr Kenny said it was quite clear that the unions who had stayed in the talks had made an impact in terms of some adjustment. But it had been made perfectly clear that the provisions of the agreement, relating to pay, productivity and reform, would apply to everybody assuming they were ratified.

Speaking in the Dáil, Mr Kenny said the deal had been negotiated between the unions and management over quite a number of weeks.

He said the process was now well underway for unions to consider, analyse and decide on their view on the LRC paper.

The Taoiseach was replying to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who said elements of the deal were very unfair to certain workers. This had been made worse by a divide and conquer strategy being deployed by the Government, he added.

Mr Martin said gardaíi, health care workers, nurses, emergency medical technicians, Army personnel, and many more, were singled out for particular treatment.

He claimed that side deals were being done on an ongoing basis. Fire personnel and prison officers retained their double pay on a Sunday, while their colleagues on the frontline, such as gardaí, emergency medical technicians and nurses, were being treated in a much more vindictive way.

Separately, the executive of the Unite trade union is to recommend to members that they should reject the proposed renegotiated agreement in a ballot.

Unite has around 6,500 members across the public service, mainly in health and local authority sectors.

Unite national co-ordinator Walter Cullen described the proposed Croke Park deal as "a sugar-coated poison pill".

He said the union believed that pay cuts were the wrong thing to do. He said the net savings would be minuscule compared to the misery the cuts would impose on public service staff.

"The sacrifices being asked of public servants will not achieve what the Government wants to achieve in terms of returning the economy to growth," he said.

Mr Cullen added that Unite would not be bound by any decision in relation to accepting the deal other than the decision of its members in its own ballot.