Unions have reacted angrily to Fine Gael's call on the Government not to pay €500 million in benchmarking awards to 200,000 public servants next year, writes Carl O'Brien in Killarney.
Speaking to the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting in Killarney, Co Kerry, the party leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said that the payments were a bad deal for the taxpayer and would suck away resources from priority areas such as health and transport.
Setting out Fine Gael's priorities for the next Dáil session, he said the deal should be renegotiated to ensure there were tangible results in exchange for the payments.
"It is abundantly clear that the framework put in place by the Government has not delivered.
"It is time to blow the whistle on this process.
"For months we have hoped that something might show up to justify this pay award, but nothing has," Mr Kenny said.
Mandate, which represents thousands of public servants, said benchmarking was already providing results by helping to eliminate knock-on pay claims, uphold a no-strike clause and modernise work practices.
SIPTU's vice-president, Mr Jack O'Connor, described the policy move as "a cynical piece of political opportunism".
The Civil and Public Services Union, which represents some 12,000 civil servants, characterised Mr Kenny's remarks as "ill-advised".
The union's general secretary, Mr Blair Horan, warned of industrial action if there was any attempt to change the benchmarking arrangements.
Fine Gael had expressed unease over the benchmarking deal in recent months, but Mr Kenny's comments yesterday were the most critical on the pay awards to date.
He accepted that the policy would cause anger among public servants and some opposition parties, but said the public deserved greater value for money from public services.
The Fine Gael leader said the full cost of the deal would be €1.2 billion annually and that this sum could be better spent in areas such as crime, transport, health and education.
Radical review of "knee-jerk" policies urged by Kenny: page 7