National rallies planned around Ireland next Thursday if no pay deal agreed

The picket line at Cork Educate Together  in Cork during the national strike by public sector workers in October. Picture: Larry Cummins

Trade unions are planning to hold national rallies in eight locations across the country next Thursday if no pay deal is agreed.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) is continuing to plan for a strike on November 12, the same day as the European Political Community (EPC) meeting will take place in Dublin city centre.

More than 50 political leaders around the continent will come to Dublin for the flagship event of Ireland’s presidency of the EU.

The locations of several national rallies which will coincide with the strikes have now been revealed: Dublin, Cork City, Limerick City, Waterford City, Galway City, Tullamore, Sligo Town, and Letterkenny.

Rallies will be held between 12pm and 2pm.

A message on the poster advertising the events reads: “Together for fair pay. Ní neart go cur le chéile”.

“Ní neart go cur le chéile”, or “there is no strength without unity”, is the catchphrase for Ireland’s EU presidency.

Pay talks were adjourned last Friday as unions and Government officials hit an impasse on pay.

The current offer from the Government is a two-and-a-half-year pay deal between July 2026 and November 2028. It would see wages increase by 6.75%. Another percentage-point rise for local bargaining is not enough, unions have stressed.

Both the union and Government sides have been meeting with the Government-appointed group in recent days, led by Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) chair Kevin Foley. 

Owen Reidy of Ictu represents the unions in the group, while Oonagh Buckley, secretary general in the Department of the Environment, represents the Government.

Both sides have been taking it in turns to meet the group in hopes of getting official pay talks back on track at the WRC.

Engagement with the group concluded on Wednesday evening with no indication of when it may meet again. It is now expected that it could meet on Friday, with hopes growing in Leinster House that a deal could be struck ahead of the planned protest next Thursday.

The protest would occur on the same day as Dublin City is expected to come to a standstill for the EPC, with sweeping traffic restrictions due to be in place across both north and south of the county as high-profile dignitaries travel to events in the Dublin Convention Centre.

Kevin Callinan, chair of Ictu’s Public Services Committee, warned on Wednesday that strikes and industrial action will intensify after next Thursday if no deal is reached.

“I don’t think that we’ll have another nationwide one-day strike, but there are various sectoral actions under consideration,” he told RTÉ Radio 1.

“Possibly stoppages, possibly other things. In my own union (Fórsa), we’re looking at the option of deploying our strike fund to take out sections of our members for a week and make up their wages.

“We could do that for very significant numbers in key areas if we have to. We could rotate it week by week. Maybe 1,000 members here one week, 1,000 members in another place the following week.”

• Louise Burne, Political Correspondent