Lansdowne deal ‘is about to be torn up’
‘Chaos’ is to be averted by dumping pay agreement in the new year
THE Lansdowne Road Agreement is dead and ministers will start negotiating a new pay deal with public sector unions in the new year, senior Government sources have told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Interventions by trade union chiefs Patricia King and Jack O’Connor on Friday have convinced the Government that the deal, which was due to run until September 2018, must be torn up and renegotiated immediately.
A senior Government source, who is involved in formulating Government pay policy, conceded last night that the agreement was ‘dead and untenable’.
The source told the MoS: ‘It will be torn up early in the New Year. Then you will have an agreement when you are dealing with everybody. The other option is chaos.’
The Government has been under increasing pressure following threatened strikes by gardaí, teachers, nurses and public-sector workers demanding accelerated pay increases. A Garda strike was postponed after the rank-and-file were offered a €40m special deal, which other unions argued was outside the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, negotiated last year. The Garda deal includes a speeded-up process for reversing pay cuts that introduced for public service workers since 2008.
The move spurred other unions to demand a re-examination of their support for Lansdowne Road and to call for further or accelerated pay increases.
The plan now is to scrap Lansdowne Road and start talks in February on a new pay deal, which would come into the force by next October.
A Government source said: ‘The Government on one hand can’t afford to move beyond the Lansdowne Road Agreement, but on the other hand it can’t afford not to do it, because what we’ve worked out in the last week is that sector-by-sector agreements are extraordinarily expensive.’ The Government believes there is no point continuing to do separate deals with individual unions. ‘So while on one hand we don’t have money budgeted beyond the current Lansdowne Road Agreement, on the other hand if we are going to have to keep finding €50m or €60m for every sectoral group, that is not sustainable. The game-changer for many within Government has been the change of stance of Siptu president Jack O’Connor and Irish Congress of Trades Unions general secretary Patricia King. The Government source said: ‘Patricia King and Jack O’Connor are not idiots, they are long-time trade unionists and they know how to make deals and how industrial relations work.’
‘You have Patricia King out opposing it and Jack O’Connor saying we want talks by February, and they want to know within a week.’
Ministers will be expected to stand by the agreement in the coming days publicly. But there is a strong opinion within Government that a new deal is inevitable.
Support for the Government parties is up three points, according a poll released last night.
Fianna Fáíl is unchanged at 30%, Fine Gael is up two to 28% while the Independent Alliance are up one point to 5%, according to the Behaviour & Attitudes poll for the Sunday Times.
Sinn Féin is unchanged at 17%. Labour has dropped two points to 3%. AAA/PBP is unchanged at 3%.
‘Individual deals for each sector aren’t sustainable’