Efforts are under way to unblock the path to negotiations on a new public sector pay deal after public services were brought to a standstill by nationwide industrial action on Wednesday.
It is expected that contacts between Government and unions will now intensify as officials seek to find a way forward that could avoid next week’s scheduled second day of strikes.
Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday evening, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said there was “a sense of goodwill and a willingness to get a resolution on this”.
“The Government is open for negotiations and open for dialogue, we want to get into a negotiation process,” he said. “We will engage and see if we can find a basis and a process that would be satisfactory to all sides that enable negotiations to take place and avoid any action next week.”
There have been suggestions in Government about a possible preliminary process at the Workplace Relations Commission that could see a draft agenda for negotiations agreed, but officials remained tight-lipped on Wednesday night, citing the sensitivity of the issue. Union sources played down the suggestion of a fresh initiative from Government, though it is understood informal contacts are continuing.
Fórsa general secretary Kevin Callinan said that recent comments by Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers suggested “there may be a pathway” to negotiations on a new deal.
Callinan chairs the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), which is due to meet on Thursday to review the situation.
Some individual unions whose members participated in the strike action met on Wednesday night to take stock and consider how to proceed if no agreement is reached and next week’s strike goes ahead.
Chambers, though, told RTÉ there was “intensive work that’s going on in the background”, and “that in the next day or so we’ll be able to set out a further context”.
[ Public opinion may shift if the second strike goes aheadOpens in new window ]
“I’m conscious that we have to progress that in the coming hours and, indeed, in the next day or so,” he said.
He continued to strike a more conciliatory tone, saying he understood the “significant pressure” that public sector workers were under, adding, “They need a new pay deal delivered.”
He said the aim of Government was for a new agreement that is a “fair, meaningful and credible deal” for workers, but added that any deal had to be “sustainable and affordable” for the State.
He said he was “absolutely” happy for the issue of pay to be dealt with as a priority in any negotiations – a key demand of the unions – but he noted that union leaders had accepted that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
Chambers praised public sector workers for doing “an incredible job” and said he hoped “we’ll find a way forward” in the “next day or so”.
Unions claimed widespread public support on the picket lines as industrial action shut schools, colleges, local and national Government offices and severely restricted health services across the country yesterday. The HSE said that appointments cancelled yesterday would be “prioritised and rescheduled as soon as possible”.
[ Health service workers claim no choice but to strikeOpens in new window ]
However, it indicated that uncertainty about next week’s planned stoppage would impact its plans. “We ask patients to bear with us as there may be further delays until there is greater certainty regarding future industrial action,” the HSE said in a statement.
More than 150 schools in the Dublin and Kildare regions received threatening emails warning of potential attacks on Wednesday. The motive was not clear and the schools continued to operate as normal while taking advice from gardaí.
Opposition parties all declared support for the strikes and urged the Government to enter negotiations and agree pay increases for public servants.
Speaking outside a closed Leinster House, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government had “played a really terrible and disrespectful game of chicken with 300,000 workers that we all rely on ... I think you can feel the really strong sense of public support for all of the workers”.