Fórsa’s Services and Enterprises division backed a motion at its conference in Sligo last week, calling for any variation and improvements on the terms of the current public service agreement to be applied to all public servants irrespective of the sector in which they work.

"Technology is pointing forward, but there is a substantial risk that workers are being re-directed to models of past exploitation. There’s no future in reducing employment to a high tech sweatshop."

Challenges remain for employment law to keep pace with changes in the economy and the workforce.

Proposing a motion to the Services and Enterprises conference in Sligo last week on the need for ongoing talks on Brexit planning, Eugene Gargan said the Government’s development of a Brexit response plan has been poor:

“While some contingency plans drawn up, they’ve been developed under the pretence of ‘nothing to worry about, it’ll all be ok’. That’s not good enough."

Ten national political parties, who between them fielded over 1,000 candidates in last week’s local elections, have signed up to a trade union pledge to increase local authority funding and restore local council powers in areas like housing, water and environmental protection.

The standard domestic subsistence ‘day rates’ paid to civil servants who are out of the office on business are to increase by 10% from July. But overnight rates will remain the same.

A new circular on ‘starting pay on promotion’ will see the end of the practice of civil servants ‘marking time’ on pay scales after winning promotion.

The number of civil and public servants reached 330,500 in 2018.