Siptu to demand wage increases if budget cuts bite

Siptu is to push for wage hikes across the economy if the Government presses ahead with plans to exceed the 5.1% deficit target in the upcoming budget.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan said he hoped to bring in a deficit in the “high fours”, saying for reasons of market sentiment it was important to beat the target set by the troika.

However, addressing delegates at his union’s biennial conference in Dublin, Siptu president Jack O’Connor said it was “totally opposed to doing 1c more than the absolute minimum required to achieve the 5.1% deficit target for 2014”.