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Public servants will be seeking pay rises of up to €1.6billion in forthcoming pay talks according to the general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU).
Speaking ahead of the union's annual conference, Tom Geraghty told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that public servants are "going to seek the return of what was taken away".
He said that since 2009 public servants were down €1.4 billion because of wage cuts implemented under financial emergency legislation(Fempi).
“The Fempi legislation grew out of a fiscal emergency. The legal basis for it is gone. The emergency is over.”
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Mr Geraghty said that public servants are realistic and did not have expectations that the pay could be recovered “in one fell swoop”. They knew that it would have to be over a period of time, he added.
“The aim is to get out of Fempi and back into normal pay rates.”
The PSEU general secretary, who is also secretary of the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), represents 10,000 middle ranking civil servants.
When asked how the government could afford such a demand, Mr Geraghty said he did not accept that public pay levels were unsustainable. “The Government ran out of money because of a disastrous fiscal policy. We were too reliant on property transactions. The country lost the run of itself.”
He said that public servants were expected to pay disproportionately. He also accepted that many in the private sector had also lost their jobs.
“A lot of blame was placed on public servants, unfairly. It’s not our fault that public policy was wrong. We paid the price.
“The emergency is over. The justification for pay cuts is gone. It is not in the interest of public servants to get into a deal that is unsustainable.
“We have to find a steady way.”