A high-level group to identify the causes of inflation and recommend strategies to tackle price rises is to be set up under the proposed new partnership agreement.
The group, comprising Government, employer and union representatives, will monitor price rises in a range of areas and report regularly to Government Departments.
It will also draw on the expertise of the Competition Authority and the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs in a bid to root out profiteering.
A section dealing with inflation is the only outstanding element of the proposed new agreement, Sustaining Progress, negotiated by the social partners.
Discussions were continuing yesterday on whether to include specific anti-inflation measures in the programme, or leave those to be decided on by the new group.
In any event, the group is expected to focus on a number of areas in the services sector which recorded controversial price increases following the changeover to the euro.
"Unusual increases" were identified in a June 2002 report by Forfás, the State's trade and enterprise think-tank, in several areas including doctors and dentists' fees and prices charged by publicans, hairdressers, cinemas, opticians and pharmacists.
The new group is to have representatives of the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance and Enterprise, Trade and Employment, as well as IBEC and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
It is hoped to finalise the inflation section today, with a view to publishing the complete programme tomorrow. That may not happen, however, until early next week.
Bank officials, meanwhile, are to be urged by their union to reject the new agreement. The executive of the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) says the deal is "unacceptable" and involves an effective pay-cut for members.
Its decision to recommend rejection to its 13,000 members, although not unexpected, is a blow to the prospects of the agreement receiving trade union approval, as the IBOA has supported previous partnership deals.
Mr Larry Broderick, the union's general secretary, said the proposed agreement did not address the key issues raised by the IBOA in talks. "The 7 per cent [pay] increase over 18 months falls far short of the reasonable expectations of our members who work in an industry which last year made over €3 billion profit," he said.
Mr Broderick said the compliance terms, requiring unions and employers to accept the outcome of arbitration in certain disputes, were "totally unacceptable" to the IBOA. He described them as "a bridge too far" which would do "untold damage to the trade union movement".
The new agreement has received the backing, however, of the executive of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), which is advising its 24,000 members to support the deal.
Branch officers of the State's largest public sector union, IMPACT, responded positively to the agreement at a consultative meeting yesterday. The union's executive is expected to endorse it when it meets next week.
Union members across the State will ballot on the proposed agreement in the coming weeks, with the final outcome to be known at a special delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on March 26th. IBEC, the employers' body, will hold a general council meeting to decide its position at about the same time.
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed has postponed a decision on whether to recommend the deal to its members.
Its general secretary, Mr Eric Conroy, said the agreement would be a difficult sell to members because it offered "no clear or specific actions or resources to address the needs of the unemployed".
