PDs back ESRI call for worker productivity

The Progressive Democrats have backed a call by the ESRI that improvements in workers' productivity, linked to benchmarking, should be "verifiable, transparent and real".

Speaking following the publication of a report by the ESRI, PD chairman Mr Noel Grealish TD said: "The ESRI is right to put benchmarking and partnership together in the wider economic context.

"There are 1.8 million people at work in Ireland - 1.5 million will receive no benchmarking payments. As the ESRI points out, many private sector workers are taking lower wage increases than the public sector."

He said the private sector had shown great flexibility and this has kept unemployment down to 4.5 per cent.

"The benchmarking are to be paid in return for real public service improvements. This is the deal the Government signed," he said.

The ESRI said in its report that the payment of benchmarking awards to public servants next year could threaten the future of social partnership.

The new analysis from the institute suggests it will be difficult to secure agreement on wage-bargaining next year because private-sector workers will perceive "a stark divergence" between their pay terms and those in place for the public sector.

ESRI economist Mr Danny McCoy believes this friction will make wage-bargaining difficult. He said it was crucial, against this backdrop, that the productivity gains linked to benchmarking are "verifiable, transparent and real".

Labour's spokeswoman on finance Ms Joan Burton said the ESRI report "highlights once again how blinkered ideology and political cynicism rather than sound economics are driving Minister McCreevy's policies."

SIPTU welcomed the ESRI's "more reasonable assessment" of the economy saying it is now "all the more urgent" to address the "deterioration in public services, particularly in the health area."