Talks between Garda representatives and the Government over plans to trim €100 million from the pay and overtime bill of An Garda Siochana continued today.
The negotiations are part of a wider effort by the Government to cut the public sector pay bill by €1.3 billion.
Garda Representative Association (GRA) president Michael O'Boyce said this morning it was too early to say yet if a deal could be reached, but said the €100 million reduction, could be possible with a degree of flexibility and innovation.
"By Wednesday or Thursday of this week it will be clear if a deal can be done or not," he said. "I think at this stage it would be completely premature to call it one way or the other."
Mr O'Boyce said any cuts should be across the board. He said the association was taking the view that the cuts agreed now should be reversed from 2013, although it was not yet known if the Government viewed the measures as permanent.
Mr O'Boyce also warned that the recruitment embargo would see a reduction in the number of gardaí.
Separately, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association today called for a 10 per cent cut in public spending across the board, arguing that it was fair and necessary to deal with the current budgetary crisis. Such a cut would improve competitiveness and support exports, it said.
The proposal was contained in the ICSA's pre-budget submission. ICSA president Malcolm Thompson warned that implementing excessive cuts would destroy the viability of many farms.
"It is impossible to understand how the government continues with the pretence that it is treating all sectors in an even-handed way. Savage cuts have already been applied to farming and more are planned under Bord Snip, yet there is no decision on how to tackle the biggest spending areas of public sector pay and social welfare," he said.
The group is seeking to keep the REPS scheme open, with less severe cuts to other support payments made to farmers.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen has indicated cutting the public sector pay bill will take immediate priority over long-promised reform of the public service.
Mr Cowen yesterday outlined his view that fundamental reform of the public sector was urgently required but said its implementation was a medium to long-term goal.
In the wake of an interview given by the Taoiseach yesterday to RTÉ, Government sources emphasised that his views on reform could not be interpreted as any softening of the stance by Mr Cowen over cuts in the December 9th Budget.
The sources said Mr Cowen and Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan were “ad idem” that cuts in the public sector pay bill must make up €1.3 billion of the €4 billion reductions sought in State spending for 2010.
Mr Cowen said the Government needed to look at all areas of reform, including productivity and pay policy, but also stressed the Government needed to reduce its outgoings now.
He said he would be willing to examine “all of the levers that are available to us, including numbers, the whole system of allowances, all of the various issues that are involved in different sectors. We have to review all of that and do it in a way that gives us the best outcome.
“That is a medium to long-term process. The immediate process is obtaining the monies,” he said.
He said the reform plan was not an attack on or hostile to public services. “It’s about making sure that we have provision of public service in the future that is affordable, efficient, effective and that is joined-up. And that we get rid of all of these administrative boundaries that are providing costs and compensation factors right across the system.”
Government officials are due to produce greater details of savings in the public sector pay bill to date, a vision for the size and scale of the public service in the future, and a menu of options for generating €1.3 billion in cost reductions next year.
Highly-placed sources said last night that a response from the Government to these three areas would form the basis of the talks.
The talks centre on producing an alternative to securing savings by cutting pay for the 300,000-plus staff in the public service. The alternative plan, which has been under discussion, would involve significant reform of the public sector from 2011 including substantial job reductions as well as “bridging mechanisms”.
Some of these could be of a temporary nature, and would be introduced in the budget to achieve the €1.3 billion in savings sought by the Government next year.
These “bridging mechanisms” are a code for cutbacks, although the details have not yet been proposed.
Government officials have already said that around €2.3 billion has been saved to date as a result of the moratorium on recruitment, the non-payment of pay increases under the national agreement signed last year and the introduction of the pension levy. Union leaders have sought these savings to be strongly highlighted by the Government side.
The Government has also indicated that if the moratorium on recruitment was continued up to 2013, and in the absence of an overall public service reform plan, there could be 25,000 fewer staff on the State payroll.
The unions are looking for the Government to produce a credible and comprehensive reform plan for the public service over the coming five years.
Any such reform programme is expected to begin generating savings from 2011. In the interim, cost-reducing measures for next year will be required.
The general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, David Begg, said yesterday that unions did not have to protect every existing working practice in the public service.
He said that the best defence of public services is to have them as efficient and as effective as they can be to a point where people will never wish to see them changed.