The possibility of a new public sector pay deal being struck quickly remains a possibility, union leader Kevin Callinan said on Monday night.
Callinan, who is Fórsa general secretary, was speaking after union and Government representatives met for the first time for talks proper at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
He indicated before the talks got under way he felt there was the possibility of a deal being struck in days rather than weeks.
After six hours of talks on Monday, he said: “I think one of the positives out of today was both sides are committed to try and do this as quickly as possible.
“The urgency does seem to be shared, so I think that is a positive. So we definitely welcome that.”
The opening session, he said, had been mainly about the two sides providing an “opening outline of positions”.
“We went through in some detail our priorities in relation to pay, the various aspects of it,” he said. “We had a good discussion with the WRC’s facilitators, and we’ve given them some things to think about overnight.
“Obviously, we’re going to start with pay, but there are other things to be discussed as well, from both our perspective and theirs. We’re back in at 10.30am, so we’ll see tomorrow.”
Asked if the unions had received any feedback from the Government side in relation to their opening positions, he said they had not, but suggested they would “get a sense of that tomorrow”.
“We mainly laid out the issues and backed them up with a lot of detail today,” he said. “I think they listened to that and now do have a number of things to reflect on.”
Callinan was accompanied to the talks by Phil Ní Sheaghdha of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, John Boyne of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and Adrian Kane of Siptu.
He was earlier asked about the Taoiseach’s suggestion that any deal would have to have productivity elements that provided taxpayers with value for money.
[ Any pay deal reached with unions must have productivity elements, says TaoiseachOpens in new window ]
“Any pay negotiation has a cost-of-living element and usually a productivity element,” he said. “We’re prepared to listen to what they have to say.
“But I think if they’ve heard what members said on the picket line, so many of them said that they’ve nothing more to give. That they’re really struggling with the cost of living and under huge pressure and work. Let’s see what develops in the talks.”
One of the 19 unions involved in the dispute, Unite, meanwhile, announced on Monday it too had suspended Wednesday’s strike action after consulting with its shop stewards.
The union, which represents about 4,000 of the more than 400,000 workers in the public service, had voted against the suspension at Friday’s meeting to consider the situation in the wake of Wednesday’s strike.