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Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers speaking on RTÉ's Six One News this evening. RTÉ
public pay dispute
Chambers 'absolutely' happy for pay to be dealt with first in talks with public sector unions
The Minister for Public Expenditure said he is “hopeful” that the government and the unions can find a way forward “very shortly”.
LAST UPDATE | 14 Oct
PUBLIC EXPENDITURE MINISTER Jack Chambers has said the government is “absolutely” prepared for pay to be discussed first in any new negotiations between the government and public sector unions.
The Fianna Fáil TD described the €1.2 billion set out in Budget 2027 for public sector workers as a “starting point for discussions”, adding that the only way to develop that is to have discussions.
He also said he is “hopeful” that the government and the unions can find a way forward “very shortly”.
His comments come after around 300,000 public sector workers took part in industrial action today, resulting in swathes of public amenities and offices being closed for the day.
Appearing on RTÉ’s Six One News this evening, Chambers was asked if he was happy for pay to be dealt with first in any upcoming talks.
“Absolutely. I’ve been clear about that,” he said.
When he was challenged on this, he said there was a lot of media focus on this matter, adding that Fórsa general secretary Kevin Callinan said today that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
“Obviously pay is a central context to a public sector agreement, as well as improving terms and conditions of workers,” Chambers said.
“I regularly meet teachers, nurses, lots of family and friends who work in the public sector and who do an incredible job, and we want to ensure that they don’t have to go out onto picket lines next Wednesday.
That’s why I’m hopeful, in the context of the intensive work that’s ongoing in the background and the comments from trade union members today, that we can find a way forward very shortly.
Chambers also said he was hopeful that the government will be able to set out a further context, including whether an independent mediator would be appointed or if Taoiseach Micheál Martin would intervene, in “the next day or so”.
“We’ll set out the detail of that when it’s agreed. It’s been a very sensitive place, obviously on the day of a national dispute, and I’ve huge respect for the Public Services Committee around ensuring that we have a collective approach to this going forward,” he said.
“When that is agreed, we’ll all be able to set it out collectively, and I’m conscious that we have to progress that in the coming hours, and indeed in the next day or so.”
‘Foundations are there’ for agreement
Earlier, the Taoiseach said he believes “the foundations are there” for an agreement between government and public sector unions to avoid another day of strike action next week.
Speaking to reporters at the International AI Summit being hosted at the RDS this morning, Micheál Martin said his government was “very focused on how we can bring this to a conclusion”.
“How we can enable negotiations and dialogue to commence with the public service unions, so that we can negotiate a new national pay agreement,” he said.
Asked whether it was embarrassing that the strike action was taking place as the government hosted a centrepiece AI summit during its EU presidency, Martin said that those attending know Ireland is a democracy.
“No, I mean that’s life. I think most people who come to this summit have a lot of experience of life, so it’s not a bad look in that sense. I mean, we have a democracy. We have very fundamental freedoms and going on strike as one of those.”
Cost-of-living
Speaking about public sector pay, the Taoiseach made reference to the budgetary measures introduced last week which he says benefitted all workers. He added that his government has “made provision” for a new potential public service pay deal.
Funding of €1.2 billion was allocated in Budget 2027 for a new pay agreement, but unions have said that the allocation is not enough to solve the issue.
Unions have also demanded that the issue of pay be the first matter on the table in any pay talks but the government has merely said that it would be part of the discussions.
Last night, Chambers told RTÉ’s Prime Time that pay could be the starting point for negotiations, something that has been met positively by unions.
Asked this morning about this development and whether this moved the dispute into a better space, the Taoiseach said:
I would like to think that, and without overstating it and I understand fully the pressures people are on, the pressures public servants are on, and workers are on. So our focus is on trying to get a process going that can lead to a satisfactory outcome in terms of a new national pay agreement, which is what we want to put in place.
Unions have earmarked 21 October for a second day of strikes and, asked whether this was avoidable, Martin said he hoped it was.
“I would hope so yes, but I mean that’s a matter in the first instance for the trade union movement. We will spare no effort to get talks going and we will continue to try and open up a process of dialogue here.”
Pay deal
The origin of the strike is the expiration of the previous public sector pay deal agreed between unions and the government which ended on 30 June.
As it stands, there is no successor to this agreement and unions and the government cannot agree on the terms of restarting negotiations.
Union leaders have been attending various picket lines this morning, with leaders from a number of unions speaking to The Journal outside the Mater hospital in Dublin
Adrian Kane of Siptu said unions needed a “credible framework” to be in place and he called for a “senior political intervention to shape a framework for talks”.
Asked what the main issues he wanted to be discussed were, he said:
“The four things that we have been talking about; Pay up front, some pay offer for ’26, and to make good the deficit that has arisen between inflation and public sector wages, and then looking at the money on the table going forward to address cost of living. There are the four things we need language around that.”
Kane also made reference to the comments of Chambers last night, saying: “The question was repeatedly put to him in terms of would he be prepared to talk about pay up front? And eventually, he acquiesced. I think that’s a positive development.
I think it would have been better if he had said it back in May or June, and we may not have found ourselves here today. So it was better late than never, but certainly for today was too little, too late.
Fórsa’s Kevin Callinan said there has been a “fundamental breakdown in industrial relations” and that there has been a “breach of trust” by the government.
He claimed that initial talks with the government in June amounted to an attempt “to enforce a pay freeze on public servants in a cost of living crisis”.
“We need that confidence to be restored, so the ball is very much in the government’s court, it’s with the Taoiseach, I made that clear on RTÉ this morning. So we’ll wait and see if they take that seriously. If they don’t, we’re in for a long dispute that will be very difficult to resolve.”
- With reporting by Sophie Finn, Hannah Power and Jane Moore
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