Tánaiste Mary Coughlan this morning told the Dáil the national pay deal was not up for negotiation despite speculation surrounding its future.
Last night the Taoiseach moved to try and calm speculation that a 3.5 per cent pay rise for more than 300,000 public servants due next August may be deferred.
Green Party Senator Dan Boyle this morning said "serious consideration has to be given towards the renegotiation of the pay agreement" due to the dramatically changed economic climate.
Speaking in the Dáil this morning, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the Government “appears to be all over the place” on the issue and called on the Tánaiste to say whether the pay deal was up for negotiation.
“On the issue of the national pay deal, it is not up for negotiations, but there is constant interaction between all members of the Government and social partners,” Ms Coughlan answered.
Mr Kenny said Ms Coughlan’s answer sent out “conflicting messages” and called for a yes or no answer to whether the Government was going to “pay a national pay deal or not”.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment repeated the deal was not up for negotiation. Reacting to an interjection from the Opposition benches, Ms Coughlan said: “I did answer the question. The answer is no. Maybe you don’t just understand these little words like ‘yes’ and ‘no’.”
Mr Kenny replied: “If you want to impute ignorance to us . . . fair enough, you’re following in the footsteps of your leader.”
He against pressed the Tánaiste to say if the pay deal would go ahead irrespective of talks taking place between the social partners and Government. She stated there was no legislation proposed on the national pay awards.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said he was “somewhat surprised” at Ms Coughlan's “ambiguous” reply to Mr Kenny’s question. “I understood that the Tánaiste . . . was the lead minister in respect of industrial relations.
“It appears to me that the Government does not know whether or not it is talking to the social partners at all or, if it is, what it is talking to them about,” Mr Gilmore said.
This morning, Mr Boyle of the Green Party said the vast majority of the payments “can’t be justified in relation to the public finances at the moment”.
He said there was a “reverse precedence” for changing the terms of a national wage agreement and pointed to the increment added to the last pay agreement because the rate of inflation was higher than had been anticipated.
Mr Boyle told RTÉ radio the agreement should still apply for the lowest paid workers but that “serious consideration [should be given] towards looking at extending the length of the pay freeze element of this pay agreement”.
“I don’t think anyone wants to see a situation where the Government either pleads inability to pay or finds itself in a situation where it is not honouring the agreement,” he said.
He called on the social partners to reconvene to decide what could be done to restore the public finances to health as quickly as possible.
Mr Boyle’s comments come after the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan last night told RTÉ: "The Government will give leadership on this early in the new year. We can't wait forever on this. Nothing can be ruled out."
Taoiseach Brian Cowen also issued a statement after comments made in the Dáil yesterday suggested he had raised the issue with trade union leaders.