TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said that any deal made in the ongoing pay dispute must represent “value for money”.

It comes as formal negotiations aimed at creating a new pay deal for public sector workers are set to begin on Monday at the Workplace Relations Commission. 

More than 300,000 public sector workers across the country took part in strike action last Wednesday. 

A second day of strike action was planned for Wednesday 21 October but has since been suspended by unions following talks with the government. 

Speaking at a Fianna Fáil Wolfe Tone Commemoration in Co Kildare, Martin welcomed the fact that a process had been agreed. 

“I’m open to an agreement that obviously is affordable, that can advance the productivity within the public service, but again that would look after, in particular, protections to low-paid workers.”

“We’ve always had a view of endeavouring always to protect lower-paid workers within the public service.

“There is a broad range of roles, different areas to be covered in terms of the size and scale of our public service. But that’s a matter that has to be ironed out in the context of negotiations,” he added. 

Martin maintained that any deal must represent “value for money”. 

Thousands of workers around the country took part in the strike last Wednesday. Leah Farrell / © RollingNews.ie Leah Farrell / © RollingNews.ie / © RollingNews.ie

Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, minister of State for Transport Seán Canney said that everyone can learn from what has happened. 

He said, “I would say that everybody involved in this, unions, union leaders as well, there had been reach out in September.

“There had been a reach out again last week from Minister Jack Chambers, and I would prefer at this stage to say we’re starting talks tomorrow about the next public sector pay deal.

“It is important that we had the Budget pass with €1.2 billion left aside for this pay deal, which is part of the process,” Canney added.

Meanwhile, on the same programme, Claire Kerrane of Sinn Féin said the dispute “was a mess of the government’s making”. 

“Remember at the start, the current, the previous pay deal ended in June. The two previous pay deals were done as it was coming to an end. That was the first failure.

“Then we had the Government, how many times did they use the word preconditions? ‘Oh, we’re not meeting because unions have preconditions, they want to talk about pay and pay deals upfront’. That was a problem.

“Then you had Micheál Martin on radio saying that they wanted to picket anyway.

“That caused an awful lot of annoyance”, Kerrane said. 

Independent chair Kevin Foley  met with trade union representatives, ICTU general secretary Owen Reidy and Oonagh Buckley, the secretary-general of the Department of the Environment, in Dublin on Saturday.

In a statement, they said: “Following engagement with the parties, we believe that discussions at the WRC should get under way on Monday, 19 October.

“The discussions should commence with pay-related matters, including the trade unions’ claims on cost-of-living effects between 2021-2025, this year, and for the duration of any agreement.”

With additional reporting by PA