new wage deal Public servants to receive two 1pc pay rises

THE country’s 340,000 public servants are set for two 1pc pay rises over the course of a new two-year wage deal.

An across-the-board 1pc pay rise will be paid on October 1 next year, or €500, whichever is greater.

The second 1pc pay rise or €500 a year, will be paid on October 1 2022.

There will also be potential for a 1pc increase through a new bargaining fund to deal with claims in individual sectors on the public service on February 1 2022.

The proposed new agreement called Building Momentum: A New Public Sector Agreement will succeed the Public Service Stability agreement, which expires at the end of this month.

Key elements of the proposed deal were outlined by union negotiators at a meeting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ Public Services Committee today.

Talks at the Workplace Relations Commission ended in the early hours of this morning.

The four chief negotiators told the union meeting that Building Momentum: A New Public Sector Agreement was a “positive short-term package” negotiated against a difficult background.

In a statement, the committee said the new proposals would “build on the momentum of recent pay restoration and public service flexibility and service quality”.

If ratified by union members in a ballot, the deal will run from January 1 next year until December 31 2022.

The public services committee said it was “substantially weighted” towards lower income public servants.

The new sectoral bargaining fund will be worth 1pc of the public sector pay bill – which would be in the region of €180m.

The deal also includes:

• Setting up an independent body to make recommendations on the unions’ demand to roll back extra unpaid hours.
• €150m has been made available to begin “implementation of the outcome” during 2022.
• A measure to resolve lower pay rates for “new entrant” teachers. This means those recruited since January 1 2011 will move from point 11 to point 13 of the pay scale.
• Overtime and premium payments will return to pre-2013 levels.

The proposed deal pledges the parties to “maintain the momentum for reform” including the response to Covid-19, ensuring that schools remain open, and managing the response to Brexit.

This includes temporary reassignment of staff and increasing the movement of staff across the public service where necessary.

There is a clause in the agreement that commits the parties to industrial peace, in line with previous deals.

Chair of the public services committee, Kevin Callinan, said the proposals were the best outcome that could be achieved over the relatively short lifetime of the proposed deal.

“This agreement builds on recent momentum to improve our public services and the lives of those who depend on and deliver them,” he said.

“The pay terms represent a realistic and acceptable approach to incomes, and they are substantially skewed towards lower earners in a very challenging context of limited resources.

“The ICTU team has also achieved a process to address sectoral issues, and a separate mechanism that will make real and substantial progress on the issues outstanding from the Haddington Road agreement, including its introduction of longer working hours that fell most heavily on women workers.”

The public services committee will meet early next week to consider the proposals and each of its member unions will begin consulting members on the package.

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