ESB workers have decided to accept a new pay and redundancy package today.
The result of ballot of about 8,000 workers over a deal that will see staff get a 21 per cent pay increase but agree to 2,000 redundancies, was announced this afternoon.
Preliminary figures indicate that well over 60 per cent of workers, represented by the ATGWU and SIPTU, voted in favour of the new deal.
"This is a crucially important development which will help us to achieve our plans to improve the electricilty infrastructre," ESB Chairman, Mr Tadhg O'Donoghue said.
The original deadline for accepting the deal was June 30th, but the company agreed to extend the deadline because talks with retail staff had not been completed.
The deal, known as the Programme for Action on Comnpetitiveness and Transformation (PACT), is crucial to ESB’s plans to restructure the company before the market is fully deregulated in 2005.