About 20,000 national teachers are poised to lodge a new pay claim in line with the latest offer to the Garda, in a fresh challenge to the Government.
The pay terms of Partnership 2000 and its predecessor, the Programme for Competitiveness and Work, will have to be renegotiated, according to one of the State's leading public service trade unionists, as other workers make similar demands.
Budgetary policy and EU demands for changes in the Corporation Tax regime will dominate the agenda at today's all-day special Cabinet meeting.
The general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Mr Joe O'Toole, has confirmed that he will be serving a new pay claim on behalf of his members once the Garda pay dispute is resolved.
Other public service unions representing nearly 100,000 workers in the Civil Service, education, local authorities and health services are expected to follow suit.
Meanwhile PDFORRA, which represents non-commissioned officers and other ranks in the Defence Forces, has announced that it will hold "a week-long press conference" outside the Defence Forces headquarters on Infirmary Road, Dublin, from this morning.
This is "in protest at the inconsiderate and Thatcherite approach" the Government is adopting towards barracks closures and "other issues", according to PDFORRA general secretary, Mr John Lucey.
Last night he confirmed that the principal "other issue" was lack of progress in pay talks.
"Garda pay is going up by over 10 per cent," he said. "Our pay talks have dragged on since last October and we have to do something." He said that regulations forbade picketing by soldiers, but that his executive was looking for ways to escalate the action if necessary.
It is by no means certain that Garda Representative Association members will accept the latest pay deal, when their ballot closes on August 4th. While it is worth around nine per cent, individual increases will range up to 13.3 per cent.
Whatever the result, the package is now certain to be taken as a precedent within the public service for a new round of pay negotiations.
Mr O'Toole says that the INTO executive is currently considering the basis for its claim. He is the first public sector trade union leader to come out publicly and say that the latest Government offer to the GRA means that the pay terms of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work, and those in Partnership 2000, must be renegotiated.
Mr O'Toole made his comments in an interview with The Irish Times during which he announced his candidacy for the vice-presidency of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
He saw renegotiation of the national pay agreements as a vote-winning issue.
Last month the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Peter Cassells, and the director general of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, Mr John Dunne, assured the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, that the proposed offer to the GRA did not breach national pay agreements.
However, it is understood that the public service trade union leaders on the ICTU executive have made it clear that they do not consider themselves bound by this position.