A senior manager at one of Dublin's local authorities has expressed frustration over difficulties he has faced in implementing changes under the Croke Park agreement.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county manager Owen Keegan criticised the failure of the deal to deliver the changes he said are needed to improve efficiency.
He described his experience of trying to bring about change under the deal as "very disappointing".
Under Croke Park, negotiated in March 2010, the Government guaranteed there would be no further pay cuts for public service staff and no compulsory redundancies until at least 2014.
The deal also included a mechanism for possibly reversing part or all of the pay cuts introduced in recent years.
In return for these guarantees, trade unions agreed to co-operate on the introduction of cost-saving reforms, including staff redeployment.
Mr Keegan cited a failure to agree a reduction in annual leave for the local authority staff as an example of the weakness of the deal.
"We put four proposals to reduce the leave of our staff, typically by about 10 per cent, except outdoor staff whose leave is quite modest.
“What eventually emerged there was an increase in leave for outdoor staff, no change in leave for the bulk of our staff, modest reductions at the very top and then perversely for those staff for whom the State has decided their leave is too high, they're to be compensated for the reduction to their leave by giving them more leave," he said.
Mr Keegan said he wanted to see greater flexibility and a capacity for those areas of public sector that are prepared to move ahead to be allowed to do so.
"Croke Park means everybody moves at the same pace. And that has essentially, I think, been determined by those sectors which cannot move as quickly as we can," he told RTÉ radio.
Mr Keegan's comments came a day after Minister of State for Finance Brian Hayes said that local management in the public sector should now step up the progress of implementation and show a new level of ambition for change.
“Management agendas that were hard won in Croke Park now need to be pursued by sectoral management even where that means that they have to go into a difficult negotiating space,” Mr Hayes said in a speech at a business breakfast.
“Implementation needs to be approached with greater urgency in all sectors. That will also be challenging for their interlocutors on the union side,” he said.
Speaking this afternoon, Siptu president Jack O'Connor said he was "taken aback" by Mr Keegan's comments on the Croke Park deal.
Mr O'Connor said the agreement had the potential to allow the country "to do things with the smallest public service in any developed country in Europe".
He said senior managers were pointing the finger at others, including the trade union movement, “as an excuse for their failure to manage".
