The public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is to meet today to consider a formal response to the report of the Public Service Benchmarking Body.
The chairman of the committee, Mr Peter McLoone, has already indicated that union leaders would be recommending that the committee begin talks next week with the Department of Finance on the implementation of the report.
Such talks can only begin, however, if they meet the formal approval of the committee, which represents 12 major unions and a number of smaller trade bodies.
The committee, together with public-sector employers, approved the terms of reference and composition of the benchmarking body, which last Monday published its long-awaited report.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said yesterday that he expected talks with the ICTU committee to begin next week.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, he reiterated the Taoiseach's view that "this report must be taken in whole".
Asked how long it would take for the report to be implemented, Mr McCreevy replied: "It depends very much as to how the negotiations are going to go."
He emphasised that account would have to be taken of the "budgetary implications of this very large award" and added that negotiations would have to be in the context of a new national pay agreement, succeeding the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF).
The Minister refused to be drawn on whether the pay awards recommended in the report would mean an increase in taxation or a cut in spending on public services. As was the norm, he said, any possible expenditure or taxation changes would be considered in the context of the Budget.
Mr McCreevy noted that he had revised upwards the Department's estimate for the cost of the awards to €1.1 billion. "Let's see how things are going to develop," he said. "We are going through this particular process with the Congress of Trade Unions. We will be putting forward our stall and, as was said back in December 2000, the state of the public finances will have to be taken into account."
Meanwhile, the president of SIPTU, Mr Des Geraghty, called on the trade union movement to give a collective response to the report. Benchmarking was a collective process, he said. "What I don't want to see happening is individual groups trying to break loose."
He said people should look "very carefully" at the report, taking into account all the previous pay awards under the PPF.
"What I would be recommending . . . is that the Government come clean fairly quickly about the implementation, about the phasing they have in mind."
Of the report itself, he commented: "I would say it's a mixed job. But I think we should be very hesitant about jumping to throw the baby out with the bath water."
Mr Geraghty added: "I can understand it doesn't address all people's desires. But I think people should look at it in its context, and its context is: this is an attempt to address a particular problem of the public sector, which is slippage [in salaries\]."
The report recommended pay increases of between 2.5 per cent 25 per cent across 138 public service grades.
