Any successor to Partnership 2000 must contain significantly higher pay increases than those provided for in previous national agreements, the leader of the State's largest civil service union has told the Government. At the annual conference of the Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU) in Waterford, general secretary Mr Blair Horan also warned the Government it must take action on the housing crisis, which "threatened to wreck the economy and social partnership".
The past six years had witnessed "unprecedented sustained economic expansion", he told the opening session yesterday. "Employers and the economy can now afford a higher level of wage settlement."
The low paid had not received their fair share, he said, and Ireland had one of the widest income differentials in the EU. Any successor to Partnership 2000 had to include significant flat-rate increases to help the lower paid.
Any new percentage pay increases should "be applied on a sliding scale, if at all", he said. And special measures should be introduced to close the gender gap.
Mr Horan said the Bacon Report had done nothing to "bridge the home-ownership affordability gap for people on low-to-average earnings. The number of professional and managerial people who have purchased homes since 1994 has increased by 40 per cent, while the number of home owners among all other classes has declined dramatically." Among salaried employees the fall was 17 per cent; skilled manual workers down 25 per cent and unskilled workers down 53 per cent. The Government must declare a housing emergency and establish a task force to prepare an immediate action plan.
The union's deputy general secretary, Ms Rosaleen Glacken, cited the very low starting pay of £4.80p an hour as the main reason for the current shortage of up to 500 clerical staff in the civil service. This situation was creating "increased hardship, anger and frustration". Unless the Government addressed this problem the civil service would no longer be a viable career option.
The union's president, Ms Theresa Dwyer, called on the Government to implement its own 3 per cent employment quota for people with disabilities. She said 10 per cent of the current Government surplus should be spent on the 10 per cent of the population with disabilities.