THE CHIEF executive of the Labour Relations Commission has said that controversial increases awarded to staff at Anglo Irish Bank are creating “an appalling vista and difficulty” for the current negotiations on public sector pay and reform, of which he is currently chairman.
At a Public Affairs Ireland conference in Dublin yesterday, Kieran Mulvey said nobody could accept it or understand the rationale. He said the country was in a period of wage cuts not wage increases.
He added that in the last year, there had been only three areas in which he had been involved where wage increases had been granted.
These were financial services, in some State agencies dealing with energy and in some individual companies on the retail side.
Mr Mulvey said that the country was experiencing an industrial relations freefall. He said the Towards 2016 national agreement had been largely abandoned.
He also said the Government had indicated there would be a further €3 billion in public spending cuts but that it had not signalled where exactly the axe would fall.
However, he said that there was a “Damocles sword” around several issues and that if there was not an agreement in the current talks, “it could fall again where it fell previously”.
Mr Mulvey said that lower-paid staff in the public service had become disconnected from public service provision as a result of the financial hits they have taken, due to the pay cuts and pension levy.
He also expressed concern at the uncertainty surrounding future pension arrangements in the public service which had led to significant numbers of senior staff deciding to leave early.
He said that there was a question mark over whether the system could afford such a corporate loss.
Meanwhile, secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach Dermot McCarthy told the conference that a business-as-usual approach to change would no longer be appropriate.
He said that while there had been a good deal of change in many areas and that many organisations were world-class in their capacity to deliver, the public service had to be more willing to change in the future.
“As a system overall, our orientation to change has been, perhaps, rather cautious.
“Our pace of change has been rather gradual. Circumstances at the moment require a different approach. A business-as-usual, gradualist change strategy is not appropriate and is not viable.”
Mr McCarthy said that the pace of change needed to be accelerated across the public service.