Taoiseach Brian Cowen said today he was optimistic that a deal to secure a new national pay agreement could reached by Friday.
Speaking at an event in Tullamore, Mr Cowen said there was a growing realisation on both sides in the pay talks, which restarted at Government Buildings this morning, that pressures in the economy were impacting negatively on jobs and that this needed to be addressed.
"We need to come up with a solution that is affordable in the immediate term and to find some space to bring about changes for the better, in the face of a challenging international environment."
Employers’ groups and unions met last Friday for two hours of separate discussions with Taoiseach Brian Cowen as the worsening economic climate made any substantial pay increases unlikely.
Unions representing low-paid civil servants, the CPSU, said before today's talks that any deal involving a proposed 11-month pay pause was “non-runner” for its members. The Mandate union, representing staff in bar and retail sectors, said there would not be a deal unless provisions were made for low-paid workers.
Employers have said that they are not optimistic that a new pay deal can be reached in the current talks.
Arriving at Government Buildings, the director of industrial relations at the employers' group Ibec, Brendan McGinty said that pay rises in the public sector could not be countenanced this year while he also rejected union demands for special flat rate wage rises for the low paid.
"Trade unions have set out their stall that low pay relates to people on less than the average industrial wage. That is taking us into a very wide swathe of the Irish working population".
"It is simply not credible in the current environment where employers are under the kind of stress that they are in sectors where they are most exposed whether it be in manufacturing, retail or hospitality. An agreement on additional increases for the low paid is simply not tenable in this environment", he said.
Mr McGinty said that relative to our main trading partners Irish workers were well-paid by any standards. He said that average earning for Irish workers were around 17 per cent higher than their counterparts in the EU while Ireland had the second highest minimum wage rate.
"Low pay is relative", he said. .
Mr McGinty said that Ibec recognise that an agreement would be the right thing to do for the country if it could be achieved. However he said that he would not be optimistic.
All sides agreed to return to Government Buildings today to begin a week of intensive negotiations in a bid to secure an agreement.
The general secretary of the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) Blair Horan said yesterday that it would be looking to scale back the proposed 11-month pay pause for the public service which was put forward by the Government in the failed negotiations in July.
The pay talks were suspended without agreement last month after failing to meet the August 1st deadline.
The Taoiseach has told the social partners that he is ready to intervene in the negotiations if he is needed.
However he was reluctant to exert too much pressure on either side in the tightly-balanced talks process.
