Government ‘committed’ to Croke Park deal

THE Government is not seeking to “unpick” the Croke Park Agreement and will continue to honour the deal, Eamon Gilmore has said.

The Tánaiste and Labour leader downplayed suggestions yesterday that his party was revisiting its stance on the issue.

“The Government is not seeking to unpick the Croke Park Agreement. The Government is committed to working the Croke Park Agreement and to honouring the terms of the Croke Park Agreement,” he said.

“When agreement is entered into between government and trade unions, this government will honour it, and we will make it work.

“And the Croke Park Agreement is delivering in terms of the reforms that are required in our public service.”

Under the deal, public servants are guaranteed no further pay cuts and no compulsory redundancies up to 2014, provided they co-operate with reforms that would produce savings.

Mr Gilmore was responding to questions about comments made by his Labour colleague, Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, over the weekend.

Mr Rabbitte had floated the possibility of revisiting Croke Park, stating: “It may well be the case, especially depending on how things go in the eurozone, that we will have to sit down and talk to the unions about renegotiating that agreement. But that depends on growth rates, growth projections and it depends on whether it delivers.”

But Labour sources insisted yesterday that Mr Rabbitte’s comments had been “over-interpreted”.

Mr Gilmore indicated that lower growth rates would not necessarily affect Croke Park: “Lower levels of growth changes lots of parameters, but as far as the Croke Park Agreement is concerned, we’re honouring the Croke Park Agreement, the Government has no intention of resiling from the Croke Park Agreement, and the only way that the Croke Park Agreement can be changed is by negotiation.”

Asked if that meant the Government would also pay hundreds of millions of euro in increments due to public servants next year, Mr Gilmore said: “The Croke Park Agreement will be honoured by the Government and the only way that the Croke Park Agreement can be changed is by negotiation.”

He said he accepted the trade union view that the increments were “part of the Croke Park Agreement” — even though the document does not mention them.

The agreement is conditional on there being “no currently unforeseen budgetary deterioration” — meaning the Government has an escape clause if the exchequer finances worsen.

To date, the Coalition has given no indication of seeking to activate that clause.