ESB workers defend 3.5% pay hike

ESB workers have strongly defended themselves against what they called “a witch-hunt” from Government ministers over a 3.5% pay increase awarded to them in November.

As more ministers lined up to criticise the pay hike yesterday, unions representing the ESB said there was a “deliberate strategy of making ordinary working people pay for the economic crisis created by over a decade of mismanagement of our economy”.

The ESB has argued that it was honouring a commitment under the National Pay Deal agreed under the social partnership process.