The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will have to offer substantial benefits to the low-paid and other low-income groups when he meets trade union leaders today to salvage talks on a successor to Partnership 2000.
Meanwhile, the director of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, said last night employers had no objection in principle to extra tax concessions to the low-paid, provided these remained within agreed fiscal parameters.
Yesterday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions moved to heal the breach with SIPTU when its general purposes committee met at 1.30 p.m. The SIPTU member on the GPC, Mr Des Geraghty, attended the talks, as did the general secretary, Mr John McDonnell, to explain why the State's largest union had withdrawn from negotiations with the other social partners on Monday.
While there was some criticism of the way SIPTU had acted, the emphasis was on agreeing a joint strategy for dealing with the Government in the aftermath of a Budget that left low-income groups relatively worse off. The general purposes committee is to meet Mr Ahern later today to discuss the situation.
They will report back to a full meeting of the ICTU executive tomorrow, which the full SIPTU delegation will attend. There was little comfort in Mr Ahern's Dail speech yesterday for the unions, but they will also be awaiting the outcome of the meeting of the Fianna Fail parliamentary committee this morning for indications of his stance.
Yesterday, Mr McDonnell said SIPTU remained committed to securing significant concessions for low-income groups in line with last month's National Economic and Social Council report. "Nobody on £148 a week should be dragged into the tax net next year and nobody earning less than £195 should be paying tax in 2001," he said.
SIPTU's analysis of the Budget showed that if the Government had accepted union proposals based on the NESC approach, a two-income family with both people earning £16,000 a year would have been £1,200 a year better off and a couple earning £80,000 each £1,900 better off.
Under the Budget the £16,000 a year couple received £332 extra and the £80,000 couple £2,932, or nine times as much.
Mr McDonnell said the GPC meeting had gone well and it was now "up to the Taoiseach" to address their grievances.
He said there had been unanimous support for SIPTU's stance from the executive when it met yesterday and many members had phoned in their support - as well as members of the public.
Mr Ahern will also be meeting the other social partners at separate meetings today to try and set national talks back on track.
Last night IBEC's Mr O'Sullivan defended the Budget and said: "It is a great pity that it has not been acknowledged every single tax payer in the country is better off as a result."
However, he responded more positively to the trade union calls for tax concessions for the low paid.
"The fact is that both employers and trade unions, through NESC, asked that tax be targeted at low and middle-income categories. We have no problem with that." At the same time he said the introduction of the national minimum wage next year would significantly benefit many low-paid workers.