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Updated, 14:50
THE GOVERNMENT has asked the country’s trade unions representing public workers to attend negotiations where they will discuss how to achieve greater savings under the terms of the Croke Park deal.
The Cabinet, as its weekly meeting this morning, accepted a suggestion from Public Expenditure minister Brendan Howlin to invite a committee from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to the talks.
The government said its talks with ICTU’s Public Services Committee would focus on “a new agenda for improvements in the productivity of public servants, and reductions in the cost of delivery of public services”.
If successful, the talks could pave the way for a first round of negotiations on agreeing a deal to succeed the current Croke Park agreement, which expires in summer 2014.
In a brief statement, the government said it wanted to start the talks “in light of the Government’s determination to meet the challenge posed by the fiscal consolidation in the period from 2013 to 2015″.
It also said there was a “shared ambition” to build on the contribution that public servants had already made to “Ireland’s ongoing economic recovery”.
“The Government has indicated its willingness to enter a process of negotiation with the objective of concluding an agreement on workplace change and savings with its employees at the earliest possible date,” it said.
The ICTU committee confirmed it had received Howlin’s invitation. The invitation is to be discussed at a meeting of the Public Services Committee tomorrow afternoon.
A report from the implementation body overseeing the roll-out of the Croke Park deal says the agreement has saved €1.5 billion so far, including €920 million in its second year of operation from mid-2011 to mid-2012.
However, disputes have emerged between individual government departments about how non-pay savings should be calculated.
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I wonder who will be worse off after the next deal!! Top earners or ordinary workers?
Hmmmmm. . . . now let me think about that one a while.
Croke park has delivered and the alternative would be large scale industrial action causing damage to our already fragile economy
@ Martin,
Delivered Yes. But for whom ?
It has delivered a nice makey-up 92k per annum unnecessary job for Mrs Gilmore. What is a “policy specialist” anyway? Did the previous “policy specialist” recently vacate this roll? Or is it a completely made up McJob?
*role
“large scale industrial action”.
That made me laugh.
Divide & conquer, that seems to be the order of the day.
We meed our frontline civil servants/public servants. Like ourselves in the private sector the workload has doubled and wages reduced.
The top earners in the civil service are lording it over the frontliners.
I’ll not vote FG again if they don’t tackle high earners & quangos in this next deal. Now is the time for their promises to be realised.
Dear God No. Not another CP deal
what is your alternative plan?
One where civil and public servants do not earn over 100k pa save in exceptional circumstances. One where govt ministers do not trouser pension payments equivalent to 3k PER MONTH
And one where when a govt ministers wife loses her 92k pa job she really loses it and does not have a fake job created for her so we can continue to pay her
public servants would love your plan, cut the pay of the very few top earners and the politicians, but it wouldn’t save anything close to current savings, any other bright ideas?
I’ve lots of bright ideas Rod, thnx for asking.
Id start by making the word “entitlement” a banned word.
End job sharing. It’s not productive or tax efficient. Usually two women where the hubby works (also in the civil service) both paying 20% tax when it should be one paying 41% tax and one in the private sector or at home
Broaden the tax base. Everyone should pay a minimum 3 or 4 % tax.
Tax social welfare payments – there’s families on the equivalent of 60k+ pa gross when you include rent allowance, extra child support of 19 something a week.
I’d give everyone a medical card but everyone would have to pay between 10 and 20 euro to use it. We live in a country where we have free access to healthcare for those producing nothing and pay through the nose if you are working – assuming u can actually can afford it.
Abolish car tax and put 10c on a litre of fuel. We’d save a fortune. No car tax offices. No staff. No Garda check points for it. No wasted court time prosecuting non payers. No printing disks. No postage. No website. No lost productivity when people do have to go to the car tax office. No inefficiency.
Cross check car insurance with social welfare. How do you have own a 9 grand car if ur signing on long term?
Abolish the TV license and let RTE sink or swim.
I could go on and on but I don’t think u wud listen
why wouldn’t I listen?
I agree with most of what you say and all but one of your points could be implemented regardless of wether the CPA exists or not. so it appears your main gripe is with the government rather than the CPA. the only point about CPA is job sharers and abolishing job sharers isn’t going to save 1.5 billion.
Most realistic intelligent approach ive heard in a long time pity no one will actually impliment this
Apologies for the typo. Should have 30k per month not 3k. Check it out. Scandalous. If a sub-Saharn African minister trousered 30k per month we’d call it theft. Here, it’s called an “entitlement”
Can I recommend that union officials spend some time on the ground and do some research before they go in? They might discover there’s a hard biting austerity programme on going. Appreciate they were tied up with Ivory Tower plans but now they’ve been thrown out they should be able to focus…
I guess I can look forward to paying more taxes now, and work more hours overtime for free.
I thought productivity and the costs of delivering public services was meant to have been included in CP1?
How to make savings? Get rid of croke park deal? Is it not more of a poor reflection on this government that there has been no industrial action? They were elected in the middle or a severe recession – if people aren’t protesting it is because the government aren’t going after the special interest groups.
CPA has saved 1.5 billion so far, what is your alternative plan? how much will your plan save and how will the savings be made?
How has it saved 1.5billion? Tell me please. The civil service is rife with dead wood and incompetence – but such workers cannot be fired, so there is one huge area where savings can be made
the 1.5 billion is quoted by the implementation body. is your alternative plan to simply sack workers? who decides who gets sacked? how many workers would you like to sack? how much will these stockings save?
*sackings
What would be your solution to a dysfunctional civil service who is beyond any sort of disciplinary or financial reproach for fear that their entire union system will hold the country ransom with mass industrial action?
this article is about saving money, you appear to have an axe to grind about public servants, so going back to the issue of saving money, the CPA, good bad or indifferent, is saving 1.5 billion. I still await your workable plan to save money?
3……
2……
1……
GO!
Try and help out the frontline staff Longford who are under fierce pressure and stress processing Invalidity pension applications. They are up to 12 months behind and nobody cares.
It will come to a end, its just going to take the collapse of the middleclass completely to get there. Then the fun starts.
No wonder Gilmore’s behind the croke park, his wife has done well out of it, Big new job with Ruari Quinn , very cosy
Public sector workers could pay to work. Still think the miserable fools wouldn;t be happy though.
UNIONS???WHAT UNIONS??????
have your say