{"id":655581,"date":"2026-10-15T14:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T14:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655581\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T14:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T14:44:10","slug":"forsa-gives-government-hours-not-days-to-make-public-sector-pay-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655581\/","title":{"rendered":"F\u00f3rsa gives Government \u2018hours not days\u2019 to make public sector pay proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unions will give the Government \u201chours not days\u201d to develop a credible proposal to begin public sector pay talks, F\u00f3rsa secretary general Kevin Callinan has said.<\/p>\n

Mr Callinan said he believed the \u201cball is in the Government\u2019s court\u201d, but welcomed a more conciliatory approach<\/a> from public expenditure minister Jack Chambers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll obviously await with interest to see whether or not there\u2019s something credible developed,\u201d Mr Callinan said, speaking to Newstalk.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, Mr Chambers said there was a \u201cpathway\u201d forward<\/a> amid positive soundings from trade union leaders during Wednesday’s strike action.<\/p>\n

Mr Chambers said he was hopeful a deal could be delivered in the \u201cnational interest\u201d, while adding he was happy for pay to be dealt with first.<\/p>\n

He confirmed intensive work was under way, while multiple Government sources described the situation as \u201csensitive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Chambers indicated on RT\u00c9 that the appointment of a mediator could be on the table, before saying details would be set out once an agreement had been reached.<\/p>\n

Unions await Government proposal on public sector pay<\/p>\n

Speaking on Thursday morning, Mr Callinan said Mr Chambers had recognised the cost-of-living pressures faced by public sector workers, while also pointing to \u201cintensive\u201d work ongoing in the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s reasonable to allow a little bit of space, maybe this morning, maybe during the course of the day, to see whether or not that results in a shift in the Government position and some proposal as to how we might move forward,\u201d Mr Callinan said.<\/p>\n

Mr Callinan said the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) would meet on Thursday afternoon, with a review of Wednesday’s strike and consideration of future action on the agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t get a breakthrough here, this is going to become a long and difficult dispute and I think it will be prosecuted in different ways than we\u2019ve had to date,\u201d Mr Callinan said.<\/p>\n

\"F\u00f3rsaF\u00f3rsa secretary general Kevin Callinan speaking to the media with striking public sector workers outside Leinster House. Picture: Barry Cronin<\/p>\n

Asked about unions\u2019 pay demands, Mr Callinan said the \u20ac1.2bn set out by the Government for a deal would \u201cat best\u201d provide for a 2.5% pay rise for public sector workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve identified a very significant gap over the previous five years of at least 5% between wages and prices in the public service,\u201d Mr Callinan said.<\/p>\n

He said everyone was struggling with the cost of living, but that it was \u201cparticularly severe\u201d in the public service because of the focus on pay restoration following the FEMPI cuts in 2010.<\/p>\n

F\u00f3rsa warns dispute could escalate<\/p>\n

The F\u00f3rsa chief said he was waiting for a call from the Government, adding that the Taoiseach and other senior officials \u201cknow how to contact me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about a possible joint protest with fuel protesters, Mr Callinan said this was not on the trade unions\u2019 agenda.<\/p>\n

However, he said that if strike action went ahead next Wednesday, there would be pickets at workplaces, but unions would ask workers to come to Dublin city centre for a \u201cmajor rally\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Callinan pointed to the different type of action that took place on Wednesday, highlighting that many people on picket lines were younger workers who had joined a union in the past few months.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were talking about their problems to colleagues in a way that they probably hadn\u2019t done before,\u201d Mr Callinan said, adding that the day was \u201creally important for democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unions will give the Government \u201chours not days\u201d to develop a credible proposal to begin public sector pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,12828,60,43,60460],"class_list":["post-655581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-industrial-relations","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-public-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}