DISGRUNTLED staff at FÁS will escalate their protests, if promotions continue to be tied to decentralisation, union officials warned last night.

IMPENDING industrial action by employees of the state agency FÁS over “promotional blackmail” could derail the Government’s controversial decentralisation programme, union sources said last night.

Workers at the head office of the state training agency are being blackmailed into agreeing to Government plans for decentralisation, it was claimed tonight.