IRELAND’S largest public sector trade union has dismissed any moves to bring in another round of public pay cuts, saying public and civil servants had already been punished more than most as the government seeks to cut spending.

The general secretary of IMPACT, Shay Cody, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the 14% cuts in the public wage bill over the last year-and-a-half were ‘more draconian’ than the cutbacks in any other sector.

Cody said his union had been calling on public sector managers to bring forward their own proposals for improving efficiency in their own areas, as well as ideas on cutting and avoiding costs and and improving the delivery of public services.

But until the government published its pre-Budget estimates next month, he said, managers could not formulate concrete proposals for improving the operations within their areas – being unaware of how much funding they would have to deal with for the coming calendar year.

“There is an onus on management to step up to the plate. I think it would be unfair and improper if the trade union movement was to be blamed for any procrastination, because we are not causing it,” he said.

He added, however, that the unions party to the Croke Park pay agreement were keen to see its terms brought to fruition, though acknowledging that the public was becoming frustrated at how slowly they were being put into practice.

IMPACT represents 65,000 public and civil service workers within the Republic of Ireland.