The Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) has said it is to lift the four-week overtime ban which it put in place as part of its plan of industrial action in protest at Government pay cuts.
The move will allow staff at the Passport Office, for example, to carry out additional work on overtime to deal with the backlog of more than 50,000 applications which had built up over the course of the industrial action.
CPSU members have not undertaken bans on answering phones in Government departments or closed public counters this week as part of the industrial action.
However, other more limited forms of industrial action - such as a ban on carrying out work associated with vacant posts, assisting with representations from TDS or in the compilation of answers to parliamentary questions - will continue.
The general secretary of the CPSU Blair Horan said that executive would have rejected the proposed new deal on public service pay and reform if a vote had been taken at a meeting today.
Speaking this afternoon, Mr Horan said the union, which represents lower-paid civil servants, deferred a decision on the deal until April 12th. He said that the deferral of the decision on the deal would allow time for consultation with union branches.
The country's largest public sector union, Impact, said yesterday that its industrial action would continue until the issue was considered at a meeting of its executive next week.
Separately, Siptu said that a decision on the industrial action being carried out by its members would be made "sooner rather than later".
The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) is to recommend that its member reject the public sector pay and reform proposals agreed earlier this week.
However, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) executive said tonight it is to receommend acceptance of the terms of the draft agreement.
INTO, which represents primary teachers is to ballot its 30,000 members on the proposed deal after Easter.
The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) is expected to begin its formal deliberations tomorrow.
