The central executive of Impact, the country's largest public service trade union, has urged its members to support the new draft public service agreement in a forthcoming ballot.
The union said the proposed new accord represented “the best deal available through negotiations at this time”.
Meanwhile, the executive of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO)adjourned until Wednesday its deliberations on the draft accord.
The deal did not provide for special financial incentives which nurses had sought to address recruitment and retention difficulties but set out a new process to examine these issues.
On Monday, the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants said it wouldput the deal to a ballot of its 3,000 members without any recommendation.
Separately on Tuesday the Cabinet formally approved the terms of the deal, which in essence is a three-year extension to the existing Lansdowne Road agreement.
The Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said the agreement aimed to award pay increases in line with what was affordable to the State, put pension provision on a more sustainable footing and secure industrial peace.
“In that regard, the terms of the proposals represent a package of measures that is balanced, fair and affordable, and represents a significant milestone in the unwinding of the emergency legislation (known as Fempi) which was introduced during the crises years.”
Impact said on Tuesday that it would commence balloting its 60,000 members next week and a result would be announced on Monday, July 17th.
Impact spokesman Bernard Harbor said: "If accepted, the agreement ensures that pay lost through 'Fempi' legislation would be restored to more than 90 per cent of public servants. The rest would see full pay restoration within a further two years. And it will also mean pay increases for lower paid staff currently earning less than €28,500, who have already exited 'Fempi' provisions."
“It will also preserve the value of public service pensions, while taking almost a quarter of public servants out of ‘Fempi’ pension levy provisions by 2020. As a result, all public servants would receive positive pay and pension levy adjustments, with 73 per cent seeing gains of 7 per cent or more over the lifetime of the agreement. This is in line with the better union-negotiated pay rounds currently being agreed in the private sector.”
Mr Harbor said the preservation of protections against outsourcing, which his union had successfully sought to prevent privatisation of local authority services in the past, was also a highly valuable feature of the proposed agreement,
Impact said its central executive committee recommended acceptance of the agreement on the grounds that it represented an acceleration of pay restoration, preserved the value of public service pensions, and maintained crucial protections against outsourcing.
