The Government will make another attempt on Monday to convene talks with trade unions in an 11th-hour bid to avert a planned strike across the public service on Wednesday.
The Government is expected to restate that it wants negotiations on a new pay agreement for about 400,000 State employees.
Despite the intervention, there is still a mood of pessimism in both Government and trade union circles that the national stoppage – and the attendant widespread disruption – cannot now be avoided.
[ Explainer: Who is affected by the strike and can it be averted? Opens in new window ]
The strike would see more than 300,000 public sector workers undertake a 24-hour work stoppage, although essential services will be maintained.
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On Sunday, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless conceded the strike “probably will go ahead at this stage”, but he also urged unions to engage with Government as a means of preventing it.
The invitation will not set a specific time or date for prospective talks. Contact is expected to be made through the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), with the Government side making clear that it wants to hold talks on a new pay deal.
Government sources gave no indication, however, that they would accede to the precondition laid down by unions – namely that pay needed to be negotiated and agreed first before other issues such as productivity were discussed.
Last Tuesday, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said a total of €1.2 billion had been set aside in the budget for public-servant pay increases.
Lawless on Sunday repeated Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s assertion that the fund could form the basis for negotiations. Unions have argued that the amount mentioned is insufficient.
Government sources pointed on Sunday to another €1.6 billion contingency fund earmarked for as-yet unallocated spending. Speaking on condition of anonymity, senior figures with knowledge of the process said a portion of that fund could be earmarked for any agreement on pay. Some unions have indicated that more than €2 billion will be required to resolve the pay issue.
Some of the unallocated contingency fund will be used to address the overspend in the health sector for 2026.
A further one-day stoppage is scheduled for Wednesday week, with senior union figures privately warning that there could be escalation of industrial action in November if there is no progress on negotiating a new public service pay deal.
The most recent agreement covering pay for groups including civil servants, nurses, teachers, gardaí, local authority staff and Defence Forces personnel expired in the summer.
The chair of Ictu’s public service committee, Kevin Callinan, told The Irish Times on Sunday that staff would be seeking pay increases for this year, as well as assurances that wages would not fall behind living standards over the duration of any new deal and rises to cover the gap of at least five per cent between pay and inflation over the period 2021 to 2025.
“All we have at present is an effective pay cut for next year, nothing for this year [to cover the period since the expiry of the last deal] and a leap of faith after that,” he said.
Phil Ní Sheaghdha, the general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), said it did not look like the Government was serious about a cost-of-living agreement that could be put to ballot and accepted.
She said there was “a lack of trust among our members” who had been subject to unimplemented agreements in the past.
