Talks on public-sector pay to start in earnest next week

The Impact trade union has said talks on pay in the public sector have not yet addressed pay restoration.

Yesterday Minister Alan Kelly warned unions they must be realistic in their expectations for pay increases.

Meaningful talks began on the matter on Wednesday and will resume today.

Communications officer with IMPACT Niall Shanahan said this week they were focussing on drafting a document on working arrangements, before turning to pay next week.

He said: "It's a working document that affects the working lives of 290,000 people…There's a fair amount of detail that needs to be discussed.

"Next week we expect that we will get into a discussion about the actual level of pay restoration."