The Croke Park agreement on public sector pay and reform is likely to be ratified next week after the State's two largest public sector unions voted to support the deal.
Impact and Siptu today released results of members ballots which offered a strong backing for the agreement. Siptu and Impact collectively represent more than 130,000 staff.
Members of Impact voted in favour by a margin of 77 per cent to 23 per cent. Siptu members supported it by a margin of 65 per cent to 35 per cent.
An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen welcomed Siptu and Impact's endorsement of the agreement.
Speaking in Ennis, Mr Cowen said: "I believe this agreement provides us with an important opportunity to underpin stability and build for prosperity. I believe that it is now a matter for the public services committee of ICTU who meet next week to decide on the overall outcome." He added: "I very much welcome the fact that these two trade unions and their membership have come forward with this result.
"I believe that it is the best possible deal that can be negotiated in the present circumstances."
In a statement this afternoon Impact general secretary -designate Shay Cody said the Government now needed to indicate that it will challenge senior public service managers and require them to start acting to work the agreement, deliver real reforms, and involve staff and unions from the very beginning..
He said the Taoiseach should begin by calling all the key public service management players together, with staff representatives, to set out how the reforms were going to be driven and staff involved.
"Inertia is now the biggest challenge facing public service reform and people who use and deliver public services need to see early evidence that this agreement is going to deliver for them," he said.
Siptu president Jack O'Connor said: “Our members in the public service have decided to go with a medium term strategy which protects their interests in the matters of pay, job security, and pensions while providing a framework for the reinstatement of agreed rates over time.”
Under the proposed deal the Government has given a commitment that there will be no further cuts in public sector pay until 2014 at least.
The unions have agreed to implement extensive reforms in work practices and conditions of employment throughout the entire public service. The deal does not contain specific guarantees on reversing pay cuts that were put in place in the budget last December.
However, there will be a review of public sector pay in spring of next year and in each subsequent year. These will take account of "sustainable" savings generated as a result of the implementation of the reform programme, and determine whether there is any scope for the reimbursement of pay cuts.
In a letter sent to Impact branches this afternoon Mr Cody said he believed that workers had yet to be convinced of management's ability to deliver better public services, or its commitment to the staff involvement and protections stitched into the deal.
"The union now has a strong mandate to operate this agreement in the interests of public services, the people who depend on them, and the Impact members who deliver them. It has not been easy to achieve this agreement, and the months and years ahead will be equally challenging," he said.
The backing of both Siptu and Impact for the deal, almost certainly means that it will be ratified formally by the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions when it meets on Tuesday.
The executive committees of both Siptu and Impact had urged members to vote in favour of the deal negotiated between unions and the Government at Croke Park in late March.
However, some unions such as the TUI and Irish Federation of University Teachers have signalled they will not be bound by the result of a majority vote at the Public Services Committee.