The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has defended the public sector pay and reform deal agreed during talks with Government earlier this week.
Speaking earlier today, Ictu public services committee secretary Tom Geraghty warned that the only alternative to acceptance of the new public sector pay and reform deal is an industrial relations "war."
Mr Geraghy's comments come as Ictu seeks to shore up support for the deal
The public services committee yesterday issued a statement describing the proposed agreement as “the best approach to protecting public services and the people who deliver them” that could be achieved through such negotiations.
The executive committee of the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU), which represents about 10,000 low and mid-ranking civil servants, yesterday became the latest union to announced it would recommend that its members support the proposed agreement.
However, some other unions such as the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) have expressed disatisfaction with the deal.
"There's nobody dancing a jig in the street at the outcome of this process but so far as those of us who negotiated the outcome are concerned it is about choices. It is not about a wishlist," said Mr Geraghty.
"We've come out with an agreement which in any other circumstance we would not have done but it is an agreement which provides for no compulsory redundancies for four years, no further pay reductions for four years, pay reviews in each of those years and an opportunity for the unions to input into the Government's stated intentions to disimprove pensions," he added.
Mr Geraghty said he believed the best deal had been achieved given the circumstances.
"The only alternative to the outcome of this particular process is to engage in a prolonged, sustained and very high level war, industrial relations war. I don't believe that the vast bulk of public servants want to find themselves in that situation and even if they did, it's not going to change the external factors that are influencing the situation," he added.
