Separate pay deals for private and public sector workers have been proposed by the Government in talks on a new national partnership agreement.
As negotiations continued late last night, however, the gap on pay between employers and unions was as wide as it had been from the outset. Both the employers' body, IBEC, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) had expressed slightly increased optimism that a deal could be achieved as the talks resumed yesterday afternoon. Last night, however, a source at the talks said there had been no substantive progress on any of the main issues.
It is understood Government officials had not spelt out in detail their suggestion that public servants might accept lower basic increases than private sector workers.
Public sector staff are already set to benefit from the increases due under benchmarking. While public sector unions would resist lower basic increases for their members, it is thought they might accept a different timescale for payments.
Employers were continuing to press last night for an 18-month agreement, rather than one of 12 months. Mr David Begg, general-secretary of the ICTU, said it remained to be convinced about the merits of a longer deal.
On his way into the talks, the director-general of IBEC, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, said "some companies" would require a pay pause as part of any new deal.
While this appeared to be a softening of IBEC's insistence on a six-month pay pause for private sector workers, there was little indication that employers were prepared to move on this issue.
