Exploratory talks on the resumption of negotiations for a new national agreement will take place at Government Buildings this morning.
Union leaders are expected to seek commitments on pay as well as budgetary reforms. They will report on progress in the talks to the executive of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions tomorrow.
The ICTU executive will also hear a report tomorrow from its taxation subcommittee on ways of addressing imbalances in the Budget regarding low-income groups.
The chairman of the public services committee of ICTU, Mr Peter McLoone, said yesterday, having considered the reports, "the executive of congress will decide what happens after that, and only the executive".
While he called for "an immediate and substantial increase in the PAYE allowance as the simplest and most direct way of resolving the Budget's failure to target low-paid workers", Mr McLoone added that "flat-rate" pay increases from employers must be part of any new deal.
He expressed concern that the debate over individualisation of tax allowances had detracted debate from the failure of the Budget to address low pay. Second earners were entitled to favourable tax treatment to offset the costs of entering paid employment, he said.
The general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, Mr Blair Horan, said that his members on £9,000 a year received £13.40p a week extra as a result of the last three budgets, while a principal officer on £50,000 received £60.09p - of which £31.75p had been awarded in the current Budget.
The Budget had "failed the lower paid", he said. "The campaign for `stay-at-home spouses' successfully added £130 million to the Budget" but had not helped clerical civil servants, "who are predominantly female". They "don't have a choice to stay at home because they can't afford to".
However, the MSF national secretary, Mr Jerry Shanahan, who mainly represents professional, technical and managerial employees in the private sector, said that tax relief for the low paid had increased by 40 per cent over the last two budgets, better "than in any other two successive budgets of recent times".
He warned that tax changes alone could not be expected to combat low pay. The "only way to significantly improve the lot of the low paid in practical terms is to move towards increasing the minimum hourly wage to the target of two-thirds of the average industrial wage. That is a matter for national bargaining, not budgetary policy."