The Government has “no intention” of allowing the Defence Forces to access the State’s industrial relations machinery in the same way as gardaí, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

He told AAA-PBP TD Mick Barry that An Garda Síochána had access to the machinery of State on an ad hoc basis and this would continue until legislation existed to place such access on a permanent arrangement.

Until the latest Garda dispute, An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces were excluded from the industrial relations machinery, which include the Labour Court and the Workplace Relations Commission.

However, the court was accessed during the Garda dispute.

Mr Kenny insisted in the Dáil, when Mr Barry called for the Defence Forces to have equal access: “I have no intention of permitting a similar access for the Defence Forces.”

Earlier, he told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams the Government will put in place its own "strategy" for best managing the industrial process.

Mr Adams said: “The mantra that the Lansdowne Agreement is the only game in town just doesn’t hold. There is now a need for a new pay deal that is built upon fairness and equality for workers.”

Effective dialogue

The Louth TD said a fair and timely unwinding of pay cuts was required and while it could not be achieved overnight, “it can be time-lined” through effective dialogue and a sensible path of pay restoration.

He said “it must ensure pay equality for post-2011 entrants”, and that any new agreement had to include the right to access the industrial relations machinery of An Garda Síochána and Defence Forces.

The Taoiseach said: “What is required is a well-managed process that will look at where the country now is and where we think it can be in five, 10 years’ time.”

He added: “We have to have fairness across the board for every worker in the country. The Government will not sacrifice the hard won gains that have been achieved by the Irish people over the last number of years.

“The Government will respond collectively in setting out an agenda, structure and strategy [in] which we can best manage the circumstances we now find ourselves in as a country and not a situation where it becomes sector versus sector versus sector.”

Insisting “we stand by Lansdowne Road”, Mr Kenny said Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe “has acknowledged that arising from the Labour Court recommendation, that this brings an added pressures to responsibilities that he must discharge”.

He said public service pay demands had to be balanced against constraints on the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and on the Government.