Prime Minister seeks to dampen pay pressures in wake of police pay deal

In July 1998, the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, told the social partners that the Government will be looking at new ways of dealing with public service pay to avoid the sort of problems which have arisen in the wake of a "special" set of increases agreed for the police.

The social partners have been told by the Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, that new arrangements for handling public service pay need to be agreed before the current national pact, Partnership 2000 (IE9702103F) expires in March 2000. Mr Ahern's comments were made on 28 July 1998 after a quarterly meeting of the social partners discussed the implications of a "special" pay deal which was subsequently accepted by members of the body which represents rank-and-file police officers, the Garda Representative Association (GRA), on 4 August.

The special deal provides for an interim pay rise of 9%, with the level of increase varying in relation to rank and length of service. Some 8,500 officers will benefit from the agreement, while a broadly similar increase will also apply to 2,000 sergeants and inspectors.

Meanwhile, the GRA and government officials are to examine the possibility of further pay increases arising out of the implementation of the civil service-wide Strategic Management Initiative (SMI) (IE9708103F). Such increases, if agreed, would come under the heading of productivity.

The police force's pay deal comes under the terms of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work (PCW) (1994-6) , the three-year national agreement which preceded the current 39-month Partnership 2000 agreement (1997-2000). The majority of public servants secured increases well in excess of the 3% "of payroll" limit allowed under a local bargaining clause in the PCW.

The GRA, however, was one of the few groups actually to conclude a PCW local bargaining deal during the period of the PCW itself. The difficulty was that the deal, concluded in 1994, was strictly in accordance with the terms of the PCW and later came to be regarded as poor one by a large swathe of rank-and-file police officers. They watched as other civil servants secured PCW local bargaining increases worth between 8% to 10% in subsequent years.

The 4 August 1998 agreement, therefore, represents a "second bite" at the PCW local bargaining clause. The danger which the Irish Government now faces is that leading public service unions may try and emulate the police officers' deal and lodge "leapfrogging" claims. The recent comments by the Prime Minister are seen a bid to avert a serious of such pay claims and maintain the stability of Ireland's now decade-old round of national agreements.