Government offers unions a public sector pay increase package worth €2.9bn

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe called on unions to reflect on the offer.

The Government has offered unions a public sector pay increase package worth €2.9bn which would see wages of public servants increase by 8.5% in just under two-and-a-half years, the Public Expenditure Minister has said.

Speaking to reporters after talks failed to reach an agreement, Paschal Donohoe said the proposal is designed to ensure the lowest-paid public sector workers would see their pay increase by 12% during the period of the agreement.

Mr Donohoe called on the unions to reflect on the offer made during talks which broke up without agreement on Thursday morning. He said the process is not over and it would be up to the Workplace Relations Commission to create an environment to go back to the table. The Government is available to engage again, Mr Donohoe said.

He said: “So this was a very significant proposal that was put forward by the Government with the objective of reaching [an] agreement."

Mr Donohoe said he believes multi-year, public pay agreements have served the country well previously.

“What I would ask now is that the representatives of the unions reflect on the magnitude of the proposal that was made. I've also given an indication that I'm willing to work on some of the smaller industrial relations issues that they have raised that I recognise are important to them.

“This is a very significant proposal. It is fair, it aims to make a big difference to living standards and, of course, it is in addition to all the changes the Government is making in taxation, and our cost of living supports, at a time at which we accept prices are still there,” Mr Donohoe added.

Union response

In response, the unions have expressed concern that the Government’s initial pay offering "illustrated its lack of preparedness to complete a sustainable and robust multi-year pay deal, and further undermined perceptions of the Government’s approach to the process of securing a new agreement".

Public Services Committee chair and Fórsa general secretary Kevin Callinan said that in failing to meet the basic test of dealing with the cumulative gap between wages and inflation, the initial pay offer would equally fail any test of credibility in a ballot of union members.