As talks to salvage the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness enter their final phase this week, one of the leading private sector unions has called for the 33-month term to be shortened to 24 months.
It also argues for an acceleration of the benchmarking process to eliminate growing anomalies between public and private sector pay rates.
The Irish secretary of MSF, Mr Jerry Shanahan, said yesterday that his union was offering "a lifeline" to the PPF negotiators. He argues that the MSF approach would be simple and effective.
In contrast the sheer number of issues being raised in the review, and pressure from special interest groups such as teachers to meet their demands, could see the achievements of successive national agreements "frittered away" he says. The key issue remained pay.
However SIPTU's equality officer, Ms Rosheen Callender said that childcare would be a "crunch issue" in the present talks. If the Government did not honour commitments to introduce tax relief for working parents in the Budget, to offset the rising cost of childcare, it could "spell disaster for the PPF."
She contrasted the £3,000 tax relief given to stay-at-home parents, "albeit as a panic measure in the wake of the individualisation fiasco" in the last Budget, with the failure so far to give relief to working parents.
Organisations in the voluntary and community pillar are due to meet officials at the Department of the Taoiseach today. They are expected to press for childcare payments to be increased as a poverty-proofing measure.
"Last year's Budget was not comprehensively poverty proofed, and the people we represent have borne the brunt of that decision for the last 12 months," said Ms Siobhan O'Donoghue, spokeswoman for the pillar.
Talks with the unions remain focused on pay. Mr Shanahan pointed out that shortening the PPF by almost a third would mean pay increases of about 7.8 per cent, or more than the rate of inflation. It would also keep the overall agreement intact.
He says feedback from companies where MSF has members suggested that employers were willing to look at accelerating the agreement, provided there was a local bargaining clause to deal with problems in particular sectors.
The Irish Business and Employers' Confederation has so far refused to concede anything on the pay issues. ISME, the small and medium enterprises association, has called for a firm stand to be taken against extra pay rises for the public service.
Its research officer, Mr Jim Curran said that if public sector workers' pay had been kept to the same level as the private sector's, the Exchequer payroll last year would have been £2 billion less.