A new national partnership deal will not be possible unless employers "dip into their pockets" to pay for it, a trade union leader has claimed.
Mr Owen Nulty, the general secretary of Mandate, said a pay agreement would be difficult to achieve but it could be done "if there is a willingness on the part of employers to do it".
A concerted effort to find common ground between unions and employers will take place at meetings beginning today, amid increasing pessimism about the prospects of an agreement.
Informal discussions between the parties took place on Friday, but it's understood there were no significant moves at the weekend towards breaking the deadlock.
The employers' body, IBEC, is seeking a six-month pay pause followed by increases in low single figures.
Unions say protecting members' living standards will be their bottom line in negotiations, which requires pay rises to at least match inflation.
Mr Nulty said that following the Budget he could not see inflation being below 6 per cent next year. If employers really wanted an agreement, they would have to "dip into their pockets" to pay for it.
A pay freeze, he said, would not "float" and employers knew that.Mandate, with 38,000 members, many working in low-paid retail jobs, is one of the biggest private sector unions in the State. Its support will be crucial to any new agreement.
While pay forms just one element of social partnership agreements, it is recognised that without a deal on pay there will be no successor to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
As a result, the focus in talks this week will be on making progress on the pay issue, with a view to agreeing the wider social package later. Negotiations on the programme of modernisation and change in the public service, which is tied into payment of the benchmarking pay rises, are also on the agenda for this week and are nearing conclusion.
Meanwhile, proposals aimed at resolving the dispute over dental treatment fees have been overwhelmingly rejected by dentists.
The five-month-old has dispute has left large numbers of PRSI-paying workers without insurance cover for treatment at their usual family dentists. The proposals allowing dentists to charge some top-up fees has been rejected by 95.2 per cent of those who voted.
