Pay cuts may be reconsidered if reforms accepted
Responding to news that schools could be shut down by teacher unions in the coming weeks in the escalating public service pay dispute, he insisted that their demands for the lifting of pay cuts already imposed was unrealistic.
“It’s definitively not going to happen. We can’t afford for it to happen. We have now regained credibility internationally in taking strong action to ensure that, as a country, we can survive. If we were to make any changes now, that would impact on our credibility abroad, our opportunity to borrow internationally at a rate that is reducing all of the time,” Mr O’Keeffe said. “If you get the efficiencies and flexibility that are needed, then it is quite possible that further pay cuts will not be necessary. The unions put quite a number of issues on the table recently, and those issues were very interesting. I felt there was an opportunity for us to make progress and I’d like to see those back on the table.”
