About 400,000 public servants will benefit from Friday from the latest instalment of the national pay deal agreed last year, with everyone covered receiving a 1 per cent increase.
The increases will apply to groups including teachers, HSE-employed healthcare workers, An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces, politicians and the State’s roughly 50,000 civil servants.
This will be the fifth of seven scheduled increases under the terms of the agreement, which provides for total pay rises of at least 9.25 per cent to all public servants over the course of its 30-month duration.
In addition, there are provisions for lower paid staff to receive higher percentage increases and for local bargaining agreements. The bargaining agreements are intended to address outstanding issues in particular areas of the public and Civil Service to deliver a further 1 per cent over the course of this deal, with a further 2 per cent to follow in the next national agreement.
RM Block
The bases for many of these local bargaining agreements are being finalised.
The increase taking effect this week, however, is a flat 1 per cent that will be worth about €300 a year to the lowest paid grades in areas such as maintenance. It will be worth about €450 to teachers starting out, an increase that brings the starting pay for a newly qualified primary schoolteacher to €46,448. It will be worth some €2,500 per annum to higher paid public servants including government department secretary generals, many consultant doctors on the new public-only contracts, and members of the judiciary in the higher courts.
Two more instalments are due under the terms of the deal, a further 1 per cent or €500, whichever is greater, on February 1st next year and a final flat 1 per cent on June 1st.
The agreement formally expires on June 30th and talks are expected to start well in advance of that on a successor agreement. However, union sources said on Thursday that formal contacts are unlikely before the start of the new year.
