A formal invitation to begin talks on a new national pay deal is to be issued to unions and employers later this month.
The move to begin talks on the next phase of the national agreement is expected following a plenary session of the social partners on February 15th.
However, it is expected that talks on the substantive issue of pay may not take place until April or later.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has started a series of special executive meetings to consider the talks which will run up to February 20th.
Following these meetings Ictu may convene a special delegate conference in late March to consider its negotiating strategy for any talks.
With Easter falling early this year and with a number of unions planning to hold annual conferences around this time, it could be April or later when substantive discussions get under way.
However, even before getting to the issue of pay, there are a number of other areas in which trade unions want to see progress made.
These include proposed new legislation which would give effect to measures on employment standards and enforcement agreed in the talks on the Towards 2016 deal negotiated in 2006. The pay element of the deal will end in the coming months.
Unions have also set out concerns regarding the increasing use of agency workers - temporary staff recruited, often on less favourable terms and conditions, by companies through outside employment agencies.
The trade union movement has repeatedly criticised Ireland for being one of only three countries where it is legally permissible to pay staff recruited through agencies less pay than regular employees.
However, employers are strongly opposed to new restrictions in this area.
In December the Government teamed up with the UK to block a draft EU law that would give temporary workers the same pay and conditions as full-time staff.
This issue is expected to be raised again at European level with a number of countries which support the measure indicating that they will retable the proposals at a later date.
The forthcoming pay talks will also have to deal with the fallout from the recent benchmarking report, which recommended no increases for the bulk of public service personnel, as well as higher-than-expected inflation rates which eroded much of the rises under the current agreement.
However, the Government has already called for pay restraint given the current economic uncertainties and it is expected to return to this theme at the plenary meeting on February 15th.
The public sector unions, which are members of Ictu, will meet tomorrow to consider a collective approach in the aftermath of the benchmarking report.
The unions have already warned that the forthcoming pay talks will have to deliver increases "significantly above inflation".
The public service unions have also said that the entire benchmarking process for determining the pay of public servants may have been damaged by the recent report of the benchmarking body.
