Average public-sector earnings rose by 5.3 per cent in the 12 months to last March, compared with around 3 per cent in the private sector. These figures will increase pay pressure in profitable private companies for local pay and "gain-sharing" deals to supplement the modest increases available under Partnership 2000.
Comparisons of Central Bank figures for employees in the private sector with Central Statistics Office data for the public sector show that private workers fared much worse under the last phases of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work than their counterparts in the more protected public sector.
According to CSO figures, the average public-sector employee earned 5.3 per cent more in the 12-month period than the previous 12 months.
The Central Bank quarterly returns show that the private-sector pay bill rose by 7.5 per cent over the same period. However, the rapidly rising numbers at work in the private sector account for 4.5 per cent of the cost.
This means that the real increase in earnings for private-sector workers was about 3 per cent, and the average was slightly lower in the manufacturing sector. In contrast, the numbers employed in the public sector remained fairly static.
When allowance is made for tax concessions in the Budget, the increase in take-home pay for private-sector workers was about 5 per cent. Take-home pay for public-sector workers would have risen by around 7.3 per cent.
Inflation over the same period was around 1 per cent in 1996. This means that private-sector employees ended up about 4 per cent better off in real terms and public-sector workers 6.3 per cent better off.
The actual gap in earnings between the two sectors may be even greater. The CSO figures do not include the bulk of health service workers such as nurses, paramedics and social workers. Nor do they include a major restructuring deal for junior grade civil servants.
All of those groups concluded pay deals for restructuring later in 1997 which contained significant awards for back pay. If these are factored into the public-sector earnings index they significantly raise the average increase.
The main beneficiaries of increased earnings were gardai and prison officers. On average gardai earned 15 per cent more than in the previous year. Prison officers earned 17.1 per cent more.
In contrast, the average increase for clerical workers in the Civil Service was 9 per cent.
Although teachers received much publicity for their restructuring pay deal, the average increase in earnings for primary teachers was only 6.8 per cent. Secondary teachers average earnings rose by 5.7 per cent.
Local authority workers' average earnings rose by 5.9 per cent. In the commercial semi-State companies the rise was 8 per cent and only 4.2 per cent in the non-commercial semi-State companies, where employees appear to have fared not much better than the private sector.
These figures seem to suggest that there is little foundation to the claim by Garda representative bodies that their members are falling behind in the pay stakes.
However, the bulk of the increase for gardai is due to overtime. A similar situation arises with prison officers.
If the overtime earnings for gardai are excluded, the average increase in earnings is 2.5 per cent. For prison officers the increase would be 1.9 per cent.
Groups like teachers do not have access to huge overtime earnings, whatever about alternative sources of income during the long school holidays. The average rise for teachers also disguises significant increases for some longer-serving staff. These are offset (particularly in the secondary sector) by recruitment of junior staff and extensive use of temporary and part-time teachers.