The Labour Court is expected to issue a recommendation in the dispute involving about 2,000 retained firefighters next week after both sides attended talks on Monday.
The court had intervened ahead of last Tuesday’s scheduled strike action and initial talks led to Monday’s formal engagement.
The dispute involved a number of issues including structured time and calls for increased earnings, both of which Siptu argues are required in order to address severe recruitment and retention challenges being faced by the service, which is the primary provider of fire services outside of the bigger urban centres.
The Local Government Management Association (LGMA) had suggested progress had been made on rostering and staff numbers but made it clear during earlier talks that it was not in a position to make any offer on pay that breached the terms of the wider public service agreement.
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The Minister for Housing and Local Government, Darragh O’Brien, subsequently said talks on a new national agreement, due to start in earnest later in the summer, were the place for the issue to be addressed for firefighters and said there was support within Cabinet for favourable treatment of their case.
The union, however, said that the current dispute needed to be addressed in its own right, arguing that it would become lost in the wider negotiations.
On Monday, Siptu’s Karan O Loughlin said “both sides argued their position and the court will take a few days to consider everything and will issue a recommendation that has the best chance of resolving the dispute”.
“I don’t expect it to issue it until next week. In the meantime, the status quo [the suspension of the strike action] will remain. It’s a difficult job for the court as the positions of the parties are still very far apart.”
