More than 300 clerical and administrative staff at the Central Bank are to be paid £1,000 each as a down payment for their co-operation with the extra workload involved in preparing for EMU, and for dealing with "millennium bug" problems.

Their union, MSF, has also put in a claim for substantial regrading to compensate for the extra workload it says will arise from the changes. The Labour Relations Commission has agreed a regrading mechanism with management and the MSF for assessing the changes. The former deputy chairman of the Labour Court, Mr Tom McGrath, is expected to be the agreed assessor.

MSF is also calling for the Central Bank to be given extra supervisory powers over the associated banks. The union says that if an independent regulatory authority is set up staff will have to be transferred from the Central Bank to operate the new regime.