A new social partnership programme is set to be ratified later this summer after marathon negotiations concluded yesterday at Government Buildings.
"Towards 2016" proposes a 10 per cent increase for workers over the next 27 months and also sets out a 10-year strategy for social and economic development. It will succeed the outgoing national agreement, "Sustaining Progress", as soon as it is formally ratified by the social partners.
The farming elements of the new programme remain to be finalised, with talks between farm bodies and the Government scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
Welcoming the agreement on pay and social issues, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the deal provided "an important framework for meeting the economic and social challenges ahead".
He expressed the hope that all parties would recognise the benefits of the new agreement both for themselves and for the country as a whole and give it "a fair wind" in the course of the ratification process.
Negotiations on the new deal, which began in early February, were the longest and most difficult since the partnership process began in 1987. The first three months were largely devoted to union demands for new measures to underpin employment standards and combat exploitation.
Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary David Begg said the outcome marked the beginning of a "new progressive era" in terms of social policy. Turlough O'Sullivan, director general of the employers' body Ibec, said the pay proposals were "at the very limit of what the country can afford".
