Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the recent Labour Court recommendation on Garda pay should not be used "as a basis for everybody simply piling on and saying we all need an additional amount".
Such action would equate to about €300million extra in 2017, on top of the €290 million already provided for in Lansdowne and on top of money provided for services, he said.
A recent recommendation from the Labour Court proposed pay increases for gardaí of about €4,000 on average.
Mr Martin said that Fianna Fáil’s position is that they signed up to support the Lansdowne Road Agreement which would have meant pay increases this year for public servants.
“We still believe that the public pay issue should be resolved within the Lansdowne Road Agreement,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“There are huge challenges facing the economy, there is a very basic question facing us, can we afford to jettison the Lansdowne Road Agreement now and replace it with a new agreement paying additional amounts almost straight away?
“We believe we’re not in a position to afford that, given that we’ve prioritised services in the first instance, so we believed coming into the election that health needed to be improved, the record waiting lists and times needed to be reduced, that we needed to invest more in education, that we needed in particular to tackle the housing issue, both capital and current spending, in terms of building more houses,” he said.
As a country, we have to “ask ourselves some very basic questions given the challenges comes down the road,” he said, highlighting Brexit in particular.
He said: “It (Brexit) is frightening in terms of its potential impact on the country. Then add in that our income tax intake was down in the last two months, manufacturing output was down, the retail sector is worrying about a flat situation where things are not going as well as they might have expected.
“To stand still in the public service we need an extra 9,000 public servants - that’s extra nurses, doctors, gardaí, teachers - by standing still we mean more young people going to school and we need extra teachers to maintain the pupil:teacher ratio.
“This isn’t about ideology it’s about being honest with people and saying we’re still borrowing to do what we’re doing.”
Mr Martin acknowledged it would be difficult for the Government to reject the Labour Court recommendation.
“Consistently the Government of the day invokes and urges people to use the labour relations machinery of the State,” he said.
“But I don’t think that that Labour Court recommendation should be used as a basis for everybody simply piling on and saying we all need an additional amount because that would equate to about €300million extra in 2017, on top of the €290 million already provided for in Lansdowne and on top of money provided for services.”
‘General election’
“We’re not looking at this in context of a general election, basically we’re looking at this in term so what’s best for the country and articulating honestly what we think is best for the country,” said Mr Martin.
He said: “It’s not about sowing more instability or trying to undermine. We are keeping a watching brief, and are somewhat annoyed that two to three weeks ago the unwinding of Lansdowne began with out any consultation with us.
“It’s an awful pity that the Public Service Pay Commission wasn’t established five months ago - it was part of the confidence and supply agreement - it should be allowed do its work to inform the discussions, in terms of how we go forward.”