Employers and unions are preparing to intensify efforts to break the deadlock in talks on a new national partnership deal.
The two sides remain far apart on crucial issues following a series of bilateral discussions with the Government during the past week.
Direct negotiations are to resume early this week, possibly today, but there is increasing pessimism about the prospects of an agreement.
One of the country's biggest unions, Amicus, is to hold a meeting of officials tonight to begin preparing pay claims for individual employers.
Its national secretary, John Tierney, said yesterday the talks were going "absolutely nowhere" and unions would "just have to go back to collective bargaining".
He said it was clear from the talks to date that the employers' body, Ibec, and the trade union movement were on "two different planets".
Other senior sources involved in the talks, however, said they had not yet reached the point of breakdown in spite of the lack of progress.
The failure to find common ground was causing frustration but both sides were determined not to give up on the process, one source said.
Talks between the Government and the four social partnership "pillars" - unions, employers, farm bodies and the community and voluntary sector - began more than a month ago.
One strand of the process has seen unions, employers and the Government negotiate on measures needed to underpin employment standards.
Ictu says substantial progress must be made in this area before it proceeds to negotiate on issues such as pay.
Ibec, however, has rejected congress's call for new legislation to protect workers from exploitation and to prevent the displacement of jobs.
The employers' body says it is prepared to examine the need for better enforcement of and compliance with existing employment laws, but the imposition of new regulations would not be acceptable.
It is essentially on this point that the sides have been deadlocked for the past month.
Talks involving all the social partners on the wider social and economic agenda have been continuing, but considerable work remains to be done.
A consensus has been reached that any new agreement should run for a period of between six and 10 years, rather than the three-year term of previous partnership programmes.
It is also generally agreed that a new programme should be based on the strategy proposed by the National, Social and Economic Council.
The council called for a more sophisticated approach to economic and social targets, encompassing issues such as the employability of individuals rather than just the absolute level of job creation. Further detailed negotiations are required on which objectives should be prioritised.
