The body representing lower paid civil servants is to recommend its members reject the last public sector pay deal.

The junior Finance Minister Brian Hayes has said unions that do not accept the Haddington Road agreement will not avail of the terms of the deal when the Government enacts the legislation this summer.

Two teaching unions have rejected the Haddington Road Agreement.

The National Executive of SIPTU will meet today to discuss the proposals that emerged from the Labour Relations Commission on the Croke Park 2 deal earlier this week.

The Executive of the ASTI says it has decided to enter talks with the Labour Relations Commission along with the other teacher unions, the INTO and the TUI.

It’s hard to get enthused about proposed health reform at a time when the Government is busy picking apart the very structure that, less than a decade ago, was supposed to “change forever the landscape of the Irish Health Service”, according to then minister Micheál Martin.

Ambitious plans to restructure the acute hospital sector have received a broadly positive welcome.

Changes in the way small hospitals work within the newly configured group system must take account of the difficult financial circumstances, it has emerged.

A lobby group which brought thousands of protesters onto the streets last winter to object to any downgrade of hospitals in the South-East reacted with scepticism to yesterday’s announcements on hospital groupings.

The Government has said it is prepared to reach agreement with individual trade unions, if there is no collective deal on Croke Park 2.

The Coalition will be destabilised if the Labour Party persists with attempts to means test farm and other capital assets for college grants, a Fine Gael backbencher has warned.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation executive has decided not to issue a recommendation to its 32,000 members on whether to vote to accept or reject the €1bn in savings being sought under Croke Park II.

It may be less than one week since the Labour Relations Commission issued its recommendation on how to cut the public service pay bill by €1bn but already the deal’s survival hangs in the balance.

In the face of mounting threats both to their pay and their numbers, public service unions should be presenting a united front on how they will meet the demand from the Government for a €1bn cut in the exchequer pay bill.

Emergency service workers will lose almost 11% of their take-home pay just through the Government’s proposals for cuts to shift premiums, their representative bodies have claimed.

Gardaí cannot afford to pay their mortgages and bank loans, according to the body that represents rank and file members of the force.

After two days of negotiation, talks on Croke Park II are already in difficulty, with the country’s largest union claiming a meeting later this week will decide if unions walk away.

Both the Government and unions have key priorities for Croke Park II, writes Stephen Rogers