USHERS, TRANSCRIPTION staff and secretaries at Leinster House are set to take part in the planned national public service strike next Tuesday.
However, a spokesman for the Oireachtas said last night that both the Dáil and the Seanad were scheduled to be in session on the day.
Siptu said yesterday that Dáil secretaries as well as printers and graphic designers working in Leinster House had voted to take part in the planned strike in protest at Government proposals for further cuts in public sector pay.
Impact, which represents ushers and staff who provide transcription services in the Oireachtas, said they would be taking part in the day of action. However, a spokesman for the union said that staff would open the gates of Leinster House.
Siptu, which has about 70,000 members in the public service, said that they had voted overwhelmingly to take part in the strike next Tuesday.
The union said that 85.6 per cent of members in the health sector, 78.4 per cent in local authorities, 91.6 per cent in the fire service, 79 per cent in the third level education sector and 77 per cent in Government departments had voted to participate in the industrial action next week.
Siptu provided the figures on an aggregate basis across various sectors. A spokesman said that it could not provide a breakdown of the results in individual employments.
Siptu members in workplaces where a majority voted "no" in the ballot will not be taking part in the strike.
However, the union did not provide details of the locations where members voted not to go on strike. It is known that Siptu members in Dublin City University voted against taking part in the strike action by almost two thirds to one third.
The Siptu ballot results nationwide mean that the number of public service staff involved in the strike should exceed 200,000.
Already 65,000 teachers, 55,000 administrative and professional staff in the Civil Service, health and local authority sectors as well as about 50,000 nurses have voted to take part.
Separately yesterday about 5,000 craftworkers in local authorities and the health service became the latest group in the public service to back the one-day stoppage.
The staff involved are responsible for care and maintenance facilities.
Finbarr Maguire of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, who is acting secretary of the local authority and health service craftworkers group of unions, said it was clear there was an overwhelming mandate from members to enter into a campaign of industrial action.
He said the action would serve as a defence against unjustified levies and an opposition to proposed further pay cuts.
"The unions have advised the employers that they will make themselves available to discuss appropriate levels of emergency cover", he said.
Mr Maguire said that the Government now needed to look to other sectors than PAYE workers to contribute to the correction of public finances.
"Further cuts in pay, job numbers and services will only hit low and middle income earners, while the high income groups who did best out of the boom continue to remain insulated from the effects of the downturn," he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said that it had not received a promised Government document which would quantify the contribution already made by public servants and set out its vision for the size and scale of the public service in the years ahead.
Chairman of the committee Peter McLoone said on Monday that without this document it would be impossible for the unions to judge if any negotiations aimed at avoiding planned strikes would be successful.
