Gilmore: Next Croke Park talks will be about improving workers' conditions
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has today told trade unions that the extension to the Croke Park deal is likely to be last of negotiations involving cuts.
Union groups are now considering
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Although four unions walked away from the table last night, others will now consider the deal which involves wage cuts for those being more than €65,000 a year, along with cuts to premium pay and a stalling of increments.
Minister Gilmore said that when a successor deal is negotiated in the years ahead the financial landscape will be very different.
"I believe that when trade unions sit around the table again to negotiate a replacement of this agreement that we will be in a different place economically, and that those discussions will be about the improvement of conditions for those who work in our public services, and whose work we respect," he said.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), UNITE, the Irish Medical Organisation and the Civil Public and Services Union described the Government's agenda as "unworkable" last night as they withdrew from negotiations.
Phil Ni Sheaghdha from the INMO said that they effectively had a gun to their heads.
"We didn't actually view them as negotiations because each time management presented anything to us, they told us, practically in the same breath, that if we didn't agree, the Minister would legislate," she said.
"To my mind, that isn't a negotiation."
