Talks on a new pay agreement for Ireland's 400,000 public servants have entered a third day at the Workplace Relations Commission in Dublin, with senior union figures allowing themselves a note of cautious optimism.
Derek Kelleher, an assistant general secretary of Fórsa with responsibility for the north west, said the absence of leaks from the negotiating room was itself an encouraging sign, and suggested a deal could be struck quickly if the Government side was willing. "If there is a willingness on the Government's behalf," he said, the outline of an agreement could come together in a short period of time.
Union and Department of Public Expenditure negotiators resumed at the WRC's Lansdowne House offices this morning, having laid out their opening positions across six hours on Monday and a further day of exchanges on Tuesday.
How we got here
The talks follow the first national public sector strike in years, when more than 300,000 workers walked out last Wednesday over pay and the cost of living, closing schools, cancelling hospital appointments and forcing the Dáil to abandon a sitting. A second day of action, planned for this week, was suspended after an independent group appointed by the Government brokered a framework for formal negotiations on Saturday night.
That framework, agreed by the group's chairman Kevin Foley with Owen Reidy for the unions and Oonagh Buckley for the employer side, put pay at the top of the agenda: the unions' claims on the cost of living between 2021 and 2025, this year, and for the duration of any new agreement. It also promises a means of resolution if an impasse is reached, an exceptional measure reflecting, in the group's words, the scale of the dispute.
Fórsa's general secretary, Kevin Callinan, who leads the union side, has warned that "all action remains available" if the talks fail. But the tone this week has been notably warmer than the rhetoric of the picket lines, and even Unite, which had initially voted against suspending this week's strike, rowed back after consulting its shop stewards.
The productivity question
The sticking point, when it comes, is likely to be the Taoiseach's insistence that any deal must include productivity elements offering value for money to taxpayers. Micheál Martin has held that line all week. Mr Callinan's response has been equally consistent: cost-of-living and productivity are separate things, and his members, he says, "have nothing more to give".
The Pay Dispute at a Glance
- Talks on a successor to the public sector pay agreement that expired in June began at the WRC on Monday and continue today.
- More than 300,000 workers struck last Wednesday; a second stoppage this week was suspended once a framework for talks was agreed.
- The framework puts pay first: cost-of-living effects from 2021 to 2025, this year and the duration of any deal.
- Unions say a deal is possible within days; the Government wants productivity measures in return.
- The Public Expenditure Minister, Jack Chambers, has spoken of a "genuine opportunity" for progress.
For Mr Chambers, whose department is conducting the negotiations, a settlement in days rather than weeks would draw a line under the most disruptive autumn of industrial relations in a decade. For the unions, the test is whether the Government listened, as Mr Callinan put it, to what members said on the picket lines. The answer should emerge from Lansdowne House before the weekend.