Meeting fails to stop NI strike action

Industrial action by civil servants in Northern Ireland is to continue after intervention today by the North's Secretary of State Paul Murphy failed to resolve the long running dispute.

Mr Murphy met leaders of public service union NIPSA , at their request, but did not table an offer.

Civil servants have been engaging in industrial action – and all-out strikes by key groups of workers – since last December, over a pay deal dispute dating back to April last year.

The union called for the meeting with the Secretary of State to try to get him to free up more money to settle their demands.

Speaking afterwards NIPSA general secretary, John Corey, said they had made it clear it was “impossible to negotiate any fair resolution of the dispute within the Treasury’s arbitrary pay limits for 2004.”

He said Mr Murphy had undertaken to consider all the points the union had made and they awaited his response.

However he confirmed industrial action would continue while they waited.

Northern Ireland Finance Minister , Ian Pearson – who also attended the meeting – said afterwards that while the British government wanted to settle the dispute, it had to be done within the government’s pay remit.

The minister again called on the union to call off their action, a move which he said would create a better atmosphere for the negotiations.

The union announced that strike action begun in many parts of the province last Monday by planning office staff, would be joined by Belfast staff next Monday.

Nearly 200 vehicle testing staff have also been on strike at the bulk on the province’s MOT centres since early May. They remain on strike, halting some 7,500 MOTs and 700 driving tests a week.

The Federation of Small Businesses called on the British government to resolve the strike saying it was aware of a number of small driving schools which only had a short time to go before they went out of business.

“Both sides must go the extra mile to get agreement before it is too late for many small businesses and their employees,” said the FSB’s Glyn Roberts.

Staff handling teachers pay and pensions and health service pensions also remain on strike as do the workers who have closed down industrial and fair employment tribunals for weeks.