Each week, senior Fine Gael Ministers gather ahead of the normal Tuesday Cabinet meeting to agree positions before they sit down with their Independent colleagues later that morning.

It is a normal aspect of coalition government. But the meeting also functions as something of a political cabinet, where Fine Gael’s most senior figures can discuss issues of strategy in an appropriate forum.

Angered by off-the-record briefings in the previous Sunday newspapers, Taoiseach Enda Kenny had a serious warning for his charges last Tuesday. He told his Ministers that everyone must toe the party and Government line on public sector pay and support Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe.

The Taoiseach also intimated that he expected all Ministers to make stronger public comments to help spell out the Government position to the public.

Kenny’s more forceful tone had already been evident in an interview he gave in Enniskillen after Remembrance Sunday events, hours after newspaper headlines said he would cave and grant early public sector pay talks.

Private briefings from Ministers were indicating the “genie is out of the bottle” on public sector pay and that the Government was reluctant to “go to war” with unions because of the precarious nature of the minority Government.

In his Sunday statement, Kenny did not rule out early talks but seemed to scotch any hopes of substantial pay increases in 2017. Unions, it seems, can talk all they want to the Government in 2017, but pay increases will not kick in until 2018.

Hawkish approach

While in the past Fine Gael has specialised in a hawkish approach to public sector pay, there are now Ministers who, keen to avoid confrontation on their patches, are taking a doveish line to keep the unions onside.

At best, some have been reluctant to make public comment, hence Kenny’s warning, but those such as Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and Minister for Health Simon Harris are seen as more inclined towards a quicker public sector deal.

It is, of course, no coincidence that both oversee large numbers of public sector workers who are currently restless about pay. While Donohoe’s department was said to be taken aback by the scale of the deal recently offered to the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) by the Labour Court, the Department of Justice was relieved it did not have a Garda strike on its hands.

“The Tánaiste and the [Garda] Commissioner were talking about anarchy on the streets,” said one Government source about the lead-up to the threatened strike.

The knock-on effects of the Labour Court deal are now being felt across the public sector, with nurses demanding similar treatment. Little wonder, then, that Harris is concerned.

“Simon can be a bit windy,” said one Minister. “He likes to be popular.”

As well as some friction on pay, there are signs that the age-old tensions between the Minister for Health and the Department of Public Expenditure over funding for the health service are coming to the surface once again.

Along with Harris and Fitzgerald, Minister for Education Richard Bruton has responsibility for a large number of public sector staff. Yet Bruton, according to colleagues, is “solid” on pay, a position consistent with his attacks on benchmarking while he was Fine Gael’s finance spokesman in opposition.

The Cabinet is united on the view that there needs to be collective talks to deal with the pay demands, rather than numerous disruptive demands from individual unions. Differences arise on how quickly that process should commence.

“There is no discord,” said one senior source. “This is just Ministers fighting for their patch.”

A Minister said: “Everyone is on the same page at Cabinet. There has to be a collective agreement but DPER [Department for Public Expenditure and Reform] has to play hardball.”

Same resolve

Donohoe and Kenny are in contact every day and often more than once a day on the issue. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, who is away in the United States this week, is also constantly in touch.

When Donohoe was announced as Kenny’s choice for the Department of Public Expenditure, senior Government sources were hopeful he would show the same resolve on public pay as he had during the process of selling the State’s shareholding in Aer Lingus while he was minister for transport.

Donohoe has lived up to his billing thus far and while Kenny has stood by his man, some wonder about the Taoiseach’s determination.

“Kenny is such a wheeler-dealer, you wouldn’t know which way he would go,” said a Minister. “One minute he is hardline, the next he is soft. If he saw something going one way, he might just go with it. I wouldn’t be relying on him in a scrap.”

Among the Independent Ministers, Finian McGrath has surprised many with his determination to hold the line, while Shane Ross has surprised nobody with his decision to say little. Katherine Zappone has largely kept out of the dispute, too.

Important ally

Yet the reality is that behind all the public posturing, discussions on the steps towards talks have been taking place between senior officials in the Department of Public Expenditure, such as secretary general Robert Watt, and members of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) public services committee.

While Siptu’s Jack O’Connor has been issuing threats, figures such as Impact’s Shay Cody, Tom Geraghty of the Public Services Executive Union (PSEU) and Sheila Nunan of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) are regarded as “people you can deal with”.

The Government also found another important ally, one who was more hardline than the Taoiseach himself.

Micheál Martin this week accused Fine Gael of being “soft” on the unions, a remarkable position for the leader of a party that used to count public sector workers among its strongest supporters, thanks to years of social partnership.

“The Government has to stand up for the taxpayer and everybody else,” the Fianna Fáil leader said. Party sources said Martin’s intervention was born out of a desire for a “bit of reason to prevail”.

“There is a lot of anger out there but a lot of inter-union rivalry as well,” said the source, who said the Public Sector Pay Commission, which is examining pay levels and comparing Ireland to international norms, should be allowed to do its work.

“Micheál Martin firmly believes that we need to get real in relation to all of this and can’t go back to the future as it has the potential to wreck the country.”

Given the Fianna Fáil position in underpinning the Government – with the confidence-and-supply agreement committing it to supporting the Lansdowne Road deal on public pay – it seems that both Kenny and Martin are steeling themselves for a period of industrial unrest, until a new deal is eventually done.

Both are ready to hold the line. But the Taoiseach would perhaps like his Ministers to be more vociferous in helping him do so . . . and as supportive as Micheál Martin.