Civil servants in all Government Departments have threatened to leave their posts and stage a mass picket outside the Department of Agriculture and Food, if a dispute with local office staff is not resolved.
An escalation of the dispute is also planned by the Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU) from next week if talks with the Department tomorrow do not indicate that progress can be made.
A total of 262 staff are picketing Department offices in counties Mayo, Galway, Limerick, Kerry and Cork, having been removed from the payroll for engaging in limited industrial action.
They had been refusing to handle telephone queries or carry out front counter duties during afternoons in protest at what they say is a lack of promotional opportunities in the local offices.
Delegates to the CPSU annual conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, unanimously passed an emergency motion on Saturday calling on the union's executive to ballot members in all Government Departments on a one-day stoppage and mass picket, in the absence of meaningful discussions with the Department of Agriculture.
Mr Denis Redfern of the union's arts, tourism and sport branch, which proposed the motion, said "a display of strength is needed at this stage".
Union-management talks adjourned last week and are to restart tomorrow. Mr Kevin Gaughran, the union's assistant general secretary, said it should be clear then whether the Department is prepared to make a serious offer.
If there was no progress, the union would extend its action to the Department's local office and laboratories in Cork, where national blood testing for animal diseases is carried out, from next week. Staff in both the local office and laboratories there have already voted in favour of industrial action.
The union is also challenging the legality of the suspension of the 262 staff currently off the payroll, in the High Court today.
Meanwhile, the Government is being asked to reduce the amount of money women must pay on their return to civil service jobs they were forced to give up because of the marriage bar that existed until 1974.
Delegates to the CPSU conference were told that women who left the service on getting married were being charged thousands of euro in interest on their return. When they left the civil service, the women were paid a gratuity to compensate for loss of pension. Those now returning were having to repay the gratuity plus 6 per cent compound interest.
Ms Rosaleen Glackin, the union's deputy general secretary, said women who received a gratuity of €2,000 were having to pay back up to €20,000 on their return, in order to have their previous years' service counted for pension purposes.
The alternative was for women to return to the civil service but forego pension entitlements for the earlier years. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is seeking to have the interest charge halved to 3 per cent.
