THE FINANCE MINISTER has ruled out a return to social partnership – calling it a failure.
Social partnership collapsed when public service pay was cut at the end of 2009.
However, Michael Noonan said that engagement on issues like pay rises doesn’t come often enough between elections:
“Rather than having an establishment of social partnership- which at the end was a failure.
“I would like to see something where people have a way of inputting between elections as a general principle into what their priorities would be through those civil society organisations that represent people.”
The Government has already committed to holding talks with public service trade unions. The talks are expected to discuss the possibility of rolling back on the financial emergency legislation that has allowed for pay cuts and pension changes in recent years.
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said:
Rather than simply wait until somebody takes a challenge or a court determines that the financial emergency no longer exists- it’s absolutely sensible to open discussions with the public sector unions on what’s going to follow on after the Haddington Road Agreement next year.
“Whether that is going to be defined entirely simply to a pay negotiation or whether it should be anchored in a broader infrastructure of tax for example is something the government has opened it’s own discussions on but there’s no definitive decisions on that now.”
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