Siptu may push for new public service pay deal

Siptu has said that if Ibec’s favourable predictions for economic improvement in 2014 materialise, it could create the conditions for a new public service pay deal before the end of the Haddington Road Agreement.

Siptu leader Jack O’Connor was recently quoted as saying that, depending on growth in the economy, his union would look for a new deal with the Government to come into effect before the Haddington Road Agreement’s end date in June 2016.

Asked yesterday on what improvements in the economy would be required to create the conditions for such a deal, Mr O’Connor said: “We would want to be on target or better vis-à-vis projections for a number of indices. We would want to be on the fiscal target, we would want to have unemployment falling ahead of the Government and Central Bank projections that were outlined at the time the deal was done.