Fórsa is awaiting an employer response to its proposals for the local authority common recruitment pool. The union had asked them to consider two recruitment and promotion models – those used in the civil service and education sectors – at a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) hearing in February.

Fórsa’s head of local government Peter Nolan said that the introduction of either model in the local government sector would represent an important victory. He said it would increase the number of internal competitions, providing a career path structure which has been missing in the sector in recent years.

“The civil service model provides for a proportion of promotions to be confined to the employee’s own department. This would be equivalent to having a proportion of posts confined to one’s own county or city council,” he said.