The national executive of Siptu, the country’s largest union, is to recommend acceptance of the public service pay and reform deal in a forthcoming ballot.
In a statement, the union said the proposals would benefit from greater clarification in a number of respects. However, it said the deal offered security on jobs, pay and pensions and provide a framework for recovering lost monies.
"Accordingly, we believe the balance of advantage rests with acceptance," it said.
A ballot is to be held of union members in the coming weeks.
Earlier today, the executive council of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said it would is to recommend that its members reject the proposed Croke Park deal when they vote on the issue.
Following a two-day meeting this week, the INMO, which has some 40,000 members, said it was not prepared to recommended acceptance of any agreement which it sincerely believed would not reverse pay cuts and would materially damage an already struggling public health service.
INMO general secretary Liam Doran said acceptance of the deal would have involved members signing up to all aspects of Government policy, including the current moratorium on recruitment and what he described as the “offensive” McCarthy report.
He said this could involve a further 6,000 posts being lost from the health sector and a reduction of some3.500 hospital beds.
Mr Doran said that far from guaranteeing no further pay cuts, the deal allowed for the Government to reduce pay in the event of staff failing to accept or implement what he called the “fundamentally flawed” proposals for the health service.
Mr Doran said the INMO was not moving towards a more intense phase of industrial action and would put forward its own proposal for health service transformation at its annual conference in three weeks time.
The INMO said it was prepared to agree “radical changes to our public health service but only in a manner which maintains patient safety, maximises access, ensures equity, effectiveness and cost efficiency”.
The INMO's decision brings to seven the number of union executives and representative bodies that have decided to recommend rejection of the deal which was negotiated a fortnight ago.
Responding to news of the INMO's decision, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said he believed the deal on the table was "a reasonable agreement with real opportunities for both sides”.
"The Government hasn't embarked on a road of confrontation here. The Government has given every opportunity for dialogue to take place in the early months of this year because we attached great importance to trying to secure industrial peace with the staff side of the public services," he said, speaking on RTÉ's News at One.
"Those who want to embark on a path of confrontation should consider very carefully the implications of that for the wider economy and for our people generally.”
On whether he could provide reassurance for those unions rejecting the agreement, Mr Lenihan said: “Certainly clarification can be given on the core issue that the Government does not intend to make compulsory redundancies and the Government does not intend to introduce further pay reductions.
"But clarification cannot mean that the Government will depart from its budgetary targets this year or restore pay adjustments which have already taken place. That was never placed on the table and it’s not being placed on the table now."
Mr Lenihan said the State was an employer on behalf of the taxpayer, and any taxpayer was entitled to ask questions about productivity and work practices.
“I don’t think it’s good enough for the staff side to say ‘we’re not prepared to agree to this’. If there are changes in work practices that will benefit the service, that will benefit the taxpayer, they have to be examined in the current climate. They can’t simply be dismissed as something that’s non-negotiable
"Because that’s not how modern industrial service provision takes place. Modern industrial and service provision takes place in a very fast-changing world where flexibility and a willingness to change and improve and adapt practices is the order of the day. All we are saying in Government is that that type of transformation has to be part of any agreement as well.”
The agreement involves guarantees of no further pay cuts until at least 2014, no compulsory redundancies and a mechanism for potentially restoring original pay rates in return for widespread work practice reforms.
Yesterday the executives of the CPSU, which represents lower-paid civil servants, and PDforra, the representative body for personnel in the Defence Forces, became the latest to recommend rejection of the deal to members.
Blair Horan, the general secretary of the CPSU, said that it was beginning to look as if the deal overall may be rejected, based on the recommendations that have emerged to date, although he said that this was not certain. He also contended that if the deal was rejected by public service staff that it was capable of being renegotiated.
However, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said yesterday that the Government had not contemplated any public sector pay arrangements other than the deal formulated at Croke Park a fortnight ago.
Sources said last night that there were no plans for unions and Government officials to reconvene talks to provide clarifications on the deal.
Other Ministers said yesterday that public service staff should ask themselves what was the alternative to the current deal.
Meanwhile the trade union Impact has told the Health Service Executive that it will be reinstating its ban on answering phones in various parts of the health service on a rolling basis from tomorrow.
The phone ban, which forms part of the union’s industrial action over pay cuts, will run from 9am to 1pm in HSE West tomorrow and HSE South on Thursday. It will come into effect in HSE Dublin/Mid Leinster on Friday.
Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan said last night the ban had been lifted for the Easter period and it was just being reinstated. He said that nothing more should be read into the move.
