Finian McGrath says Cabinet is united on public pay issue

Minister of State Finian McGrath is adamant that the Cabinet is united on the issue of public sector pay and says that deadlines are not helpful.

The Independent TD called on all sides to be “very very calm” and said that the way to come to a resolution was for all sides to sit down to “hammer out a deal” on both public pay and public services.

The Cabinet is due to meet on Tuesday though it is not clear if public sector pay is on the agenda.

McGrath’s comments come after calls from public service unions for the Government to convene talks on a successor to the existing Lansdowne Road agreement early in the new year.

The Government's current position is that it will meet trade unions after the new Public Service Pay Commission reports after Easter.

The outcome of this process, would, under the Government’s timetable, feed into the budgetary process for 2018.

“The Cabinet is united and will enter negotiations in the future with the public sector unions.

“We need to ensure we’re not going back to the good old days,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.

“The public has voted for increased public services. Setting deadlines doesn’t help the case. We want to ensure that public and private sector workers get a decent income.”

Mr McGrath said that the government had already sat down with the unions and would continue that process. He said he hoped they would do so again in the new year.

He said he did not accept that the Labour Court recommendation for gardaí was a "side deal".

“If we didn’t follow the Labour Court recommendation we would be given out to.”

However, in the eyes of many other public service groups, the Government breached the overall Lansdowne Road Agreement on public service pay by accepting a Labour Court recommendation that arguably gave more to gardaí who were outside the scope of the deal than to those inside the tent.