McCreevy warns of pay freeze as boom ends

WORKERS face a pay freeze of up to a year as Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy said the boom is finally over.

Meeting with employers and unions in Dublin Castle yesterday to discuss a successor to the current national pay deal, Mr McCreevy said there was no money to pay 200,000 public sector workers once they were given backdated pay under the benchmarking process.

"If we continue to pay ourselves higher wages than other European countries, that will mean loss of jobs, higher unemployment, greater drain on the public finances. It's in everyone's interest that we don't do anything that will damage the economy into the future," he said.