Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent, outlines the areas of disagreement.
Employers, unions and the Government face an uphill task when they return to Government Buildings on Sunday to attempt to conclude the pay and workplace elements of a new partnership programme.
When the parties adjourned on Tuesday night, a wide range of issues remained to be resolved, including pay, pensions and employment standards.
As negotiations on pay have yet to begin, the gap in this area remains as wide as when the talks began in early February. It may have even widened, given the continuing rise in inflation.
Employers' body Ibec insisted from the outset that any pay increase must be in "low single figures". Although specific figures have not been put on the table, this has been generally taken to mean annual increases of about 3 per cent.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has also not tabled a figure, but it is inconceivable that it would settle for less than the current inflation rate of 3.8 per cent. Ictu also wants an additional amount to compensate workers for increasing levels of productivity.
There are also serious differences between Ibec and Ictu on other elements of a possible pay deal. Going into the talks, private sector unions made the inclusion of a "local bargaining" clause a priority demand.
This would enable workers to pursue "top up" increases from employers who could afford to pay them. Ibec is resolutely opposed to this idea. Another contentious pay issue is the unions' demand for a flat-rate increase for the low paid, for whom percentage rises yield little in additional income. This is described as a "must" on the union side, but strong opposition from employers is expected in this area also. The duration of any deal has also yet to be agreed.
The reason substantive negotiations on pay have not even begun is that the parties have failed to complete a deal on a separate strand of the talks, concerning measures to underpin employment standards and combat the exploitation of workers.
An outline agreement on a comprehensive package of measures, including new legislation to deter employers from making people redundant and replacing them with cheaper labour, was reached last month.
Finalising agreement, however, has proved to be more difficult than expected. There are four key areas in the employment standards arena that have yet to be concluded. The first concerns the measures needed to stamp out the use of bogus sub-contractors, who are in reality employees, for the purpose of avoiding tax, insurance and pension liabilities. The use of such sub-contractors is particularly widespread in construction, but is not confined to that sector.
The second relates to potential labour law abuses by companies involved in public sector contracts. Unions want measures to ensure local authorities are more active in ensuring that all companies hired on such contracts are in full compliance with laws relating to workers' pay and conditions.
The third key employment standards issue yet to be resolved concerns the regulation of employment agencies. There is no dispute about what needs to be done, but questions remain over how to do it and what regulation model is the best one to adopt.
The other major outstanding issue in this strand concerns where the burden of proof should lie in the event of a complaint being made against an employer who is then unable to produce records for the employee concerned. It is understood that all of these issues are considered to be capable of resolution and many of the difficulties are of a legal or technical nature. But the view among the talks participants is that if they cannot agree a pay deal, there is little point in attempting to complete the employment standards agenda.
Another important issue proving particularly contentious is pensions. Unions are seeking the introduction of mandatory pension provision in the workplace; employers are opposed. But there are also significant differences between Ictu and the Government over what steps the State can take to bolster pension schemes that run into trouble.
Unions also want employers who attempt to downgrade pensions, by switching for example from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes, to be subjected to an independent assessment, as is already the case for companies that plead "inability to pay" wage increases.
It should also not be forgotten that a very broad social agenda, ranging from housing to care issues to immigration, has also yet to be negotiated if a successor to Sustaining Progress is to be agreed.
That hill facing the negotiators this weekend looks particularly steep.