The future of social partnership remains in the balance despite the end of talks at the weekend. A proposed agreement is due to be completed this week, when final additions are made after three months of negotiations between the social partners and the Government.
The trade union movement, ICTU, and the employers' organisation, IBEC, are due to hold special meetings next month to make their final decisions on the deal.
Farm leaders claim they have been excluded from the process and that only a last-minute intervention by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, can salvage "genuine" social partnership.
A number of community and voluntary groups said the proposed deal offered some gains, but the Community Platform, representing 26 organisations in the sector, labelled it a "programme for austerity and vagueness".
Private-sector unions have already voiced strong opposition to elements of the pay deal.
Talks on the social and economic section of the deal concluded in Government Buildings at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday, effectively bringing the negotiations to an end.
However, Ms Frances Byrne, a spokeswoman for the Community Platform, stressed that this did not mean a programme had been agreed. She was "extremely pessimistic", she said, that the platform's member organisations would support the package.
However, Father Seán Healy of the CORI's justice commission said that while the programme proposed was a "modest" one, it did have important elements, including a restated Government commitment to increase minimum social welfare rates. The president of the Irish Farmers' Association, Mr John Dillon, said farmers had been "deliberately pushed out" of the process. He said that in discussions with the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh had "stonewalled" on the issues involved.
"The reality is that this is an agreement on a €2 billion public-sector pay bill," he said.
The programme drawn up at the weekend follows the pay deal previously negotiated between unions and employers, and deals with a range of social and economic areas including child poverty, housing and insurance costs.
A final amendment was being made yesterday by Government officials to a section dealing with asylum-seekers and refugees, after the social partners objected to a clause suggesting this area of policy was a matter for the Government and was not appropriately dealt with under social partnership. Details of an anti-inflation initiative and of non-pay workplace issues are due to be finalised this week.