COMMITTEE ON ENTERPRISE:THE CROKE Park agreement on public service pay and reform faces criticism from the public and politicians unless it produces tangible results within the next few months, the head of the Labour Relations Commission has said.
Speaking at an Oireachtas Committee yesterday Kieran Mulvey said that tangible and measurable delivery was needed under the deal and that this needed to be significantly accelerated over the next six to 12 months.
Mr Mulvey said that he had previously criticised “the scenic route” being taken to secure change under the agreement.
However he said that he was conscious that there was a detailed budgetary process under way. He said that a number of managers in the public service had held back their plans for reform under the Croke Park agreement until they could see what was in the budget.
Mr Mulvey forecast that “there would be a whole new ball game” in relation to the Croke Park agreement in December and January when various parts of the public service such as health, education, the Civil Service, local authorities and quangos had to deal with potential budget reductions.
He suggested that the reform plans on the table at that stage would be significantly different to those that emerged in recent weeks.
Addressing the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Mr Mulvey strongly defended the Croke Park agreement, in which he played a key negotiating role earlier this year. He said that there was a lot of value in the Croke Park agreement.
Mr Mulvey said that without such a deal in the public service there would have been “open warfare” over the Government’s recent plan for a voluntary redundancy and early retirement scheme in the Health Service Executive under which up to 5,000 people could leave the organisation.
He said that the governments of Greece, Portugal or Spain would welcome with open arms similar public service agreements in their countries. He also said that the Labour Relations Commission’s equivalent body in Britain, ACAS, had proposed a similar agreement to the British government after seeing how it operated in Ireland.
