GOVERNMENT MINISTERS will informally discuss pay levels at semi-State companies at today’s Cabinet meeting. However, Government sources are adamant there is no concerted plan to impose pay cuts on the companies.
Minister for Communications and Energy Eamon Ryan yesterday said Ministers would today consider an update on the situation regarding pay at some of the commercial State companies. The 23 semi-States include the ESB, Bord Gáis, the CIÉ companies, Bord na Móna and RTÉ.
Mr Ryan, speaking on RTÉ yesterday, confirmed that the issue of pay levels in commercial State companies had been discussed by Government Ministers over the past year and would be discussed today.
He said the matter was a sensitive and difficult one and there were different circumstances facing each company. “We will not take a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said.
He added that nobody wants pay cuts. “We are not out to punish people or to see their income dropped.” However, later yesterday, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said that semi-State companies were commercial operations and that Ministers should not get involved in their day-to-day running. His comments were seen as indicating that there are divided opinions within the Cabinet on this issue.
“Everybody should examine what’s going on in relation to pay rates. We need to restore competitiveness to the economy. We need to ensure that those that are operating in the commercial sector act commercially,” he said.
Senior sources also downplayed suggestions of the Government opening up a new front in its campaign to restore competitiveness to the economy, by extending or forcing public sector pay cuts on to the estimated 42,000 workers in the semi-State sector.
A Government spokesman said that the issue of semi-State pay was not on the formal agenda for today’s meeting and would therefore be discussed informally, if discussed at all.
It was pointed out that employees at RTÉ, Dublin Bus and the Dublin Airport Authority already faced salary reductions and changes in their productivity agreement because of the deteriorating finances of their organisations.
However, Siptu president Jack O’Connor said it was the long-held view of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that the Government’s true intention was to impose its paycutting agenda on all workers.
“They dismissed it as a figment of our imagination. That’s the reason why the public services transformation proposals were rejected,” said Mr O’Connor.
“We are not adopting an ostrich-like approach. We arrived at an accommodation in those [semi-State] companies,” he contended.
Eamon Devoy, general secretary of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, said that any unilateral move to lower pay on his members would “give rise to an unholy war”.
Willie Noone, Siptu organiser at CIÉ, said its members would “absolutely resist” any attempt to enforce pay cuts on them.