‘Pay cuts, tax hikes if Croke Park deal lost’

THE leader of the trade union representing senior public service managers and civil servants has warned high taxes and pay cuts will follow a rejection of the Croke Park Agreement on pay and public service reform.

Speaking ahead of his union’s biennial conference in Dublin on Friday, Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants general secretary Dave Thomas predicted his union’s 3,000 members would ratify the deal when their ballot is completed later this week.

“The feedback I have got is that the promise of no pay cuts before 2014 is as good as we can get and along with the mechanism for the reversal of the pay cuts, are a good proposal on the table considering the finances of the state,” he said. “We don’t see any alternative.