Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said today he was opposed to pay cuts for public sector employees.
Mr Gilmore said the Government would find it very difficult to ask employees in State agencies or the public sector to take a pay cut in circumstances where it had agreed a pension top-up deal for former director-general of Fás Rody Molloy.
Speaking on RTÉ's
Morning IrelandMr Gilmore said people on low and middle incomes were not in a position to take further pay cuts.
Asked if he thought pay-cuts in the public sector were inevitable, he said: "I don't accept they are inevitable first of all because there already has been a pay cut for people who are working in public service organisations - it was the so-called pension levy".
Over recent weeks, some Government sources have suggested pay cuts of 5 per cent for most public sector workers and deeper reductions for those at the top could be introduced in the Budget.
Mr Gilmore also said he did not accept that €4 billion in spending cuts was required, saying "there's been a huge chunk of money taken out of the economy already this year. We see the consequences of that, walk down any street in Ireland and you'll see the consequences of it, there's nobody going into the shops, there's no spend".