'Pay offer to firefighters would have cost 40 jobs'

Nearly 40 firefighters in the North could have lost their jobs if a pay deal to end their strike had been accepted, employers claimed today.

Bosses at Fire Authority headquarters in Lisburn, Co Antrim revealed the redundancies were inevitable if the government had not handed over an extra £1.5m (€2.35m) to fund the package.

As she hit out at being sidelined from new talks to end the dispute, Northern Ireland representative Rosemary Craig insisted none of the other 57 national employers had done their sums.

Mrs Craig argued British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was right to reject the deal struck by the Fire Brigades Union and local authorities just hours before the latest eight-day picket began last week.

She said: “I was the lone voice in the wilderness.

“We had already worked out we would need another £1.5m (€2.35m) a year or else 39 firefighters posts would have gone.

“I defy other authorities to say they had costed this out.”

Mrs Craig, who sits on the National Joint Council of employers and union chiefs, said the Fire Authority could have scraped together all of the pay rises linked to modernisation except for the 4% hike proposed in April.

Health and Public Safety Minister Des Browne would have been forced to find the cash or else the job cuts were certain, she said.

Mrs Craig also claimed shutting her out of talks in London was a huge mistake.

She said: “How can they come to any settlement without having Northern Ireland at the table?

“We have 1,000 full-time and 1,000 part-time firefighters, but some authorities in England and Wales don’t have any retained.”

But Jim Barbour, the Fire Brigades Union spokesman in the North refused to believe the redundancies prediction.

“We do not accept her figures at all and we would need to see the basis for that,” he said.

“However, John Prescott’s comments about needing a smaller service shows the true picture of modernisation.”

Mr Barbour also claimed Mrs Craig did not deserve a seat at the negotiations because she was the only unelected employer on the joint council.

“It’s scandalous that Des Browne is allowing Northern Ireland to continue in this industrial relations abyss without having elected councillors like the rest of the UK.”