Social partnership talks are to resume today after they were halted just before the supplementary budget.
Organisations in the voluntary and community sector will enter negotiations with the Government today at Government buildings.
Over the weekend, senior union figures said the Government would have to show a willingness to offer a multi-billion euro plan to safeguard private worker pensions if the talks were to avoid breaking down.
Siptu general secretary Jack O’Connor indicated a willingness to tolerate the buy-out of failed bank loans if the Government moved on the pensions question, and on a number of other issues.
However, Mr O’Connor, the leader of the country’s largest trade union, said yesterday the creation of the National Asset Management Agency by the Government to buy up to €90 billion worth of bank property loans is the taxpayers’ “nemesis”.
“It represents nothing less than the socialisation of the enormous risks generated by developers, banks and speculators in their reckless pursuit of profit,” he said.
In March, the Government wrote to unions with an invitation to re-engage with other social partners in talks on an economic recovery plan after these had earlier broken down.