09/01/2008

Thousands Of Public Sector Staff Chilled By 'Pay Freeze'

About 300,000 nurses, teachers, policemen and women and other public servants won't be awarded any pay increases.

The official Benchmarking Body report recommended a virtual pay freeze and said that the only public servants that should secure special pay increases are small groups of seniors and specialist grades, such as a few hundred nurse managers and 3,200 primary school principals.

The report comes after the country's top public servants were recently awarded massive increases of up to 20pc, including a 38pc pay rise for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who also enjoys generous pension arrangements.

The recommendations will come as a severe blow to workers who had been expecting at least some modest rises, apart from the normal cost-of-living increases under the national pay agreements.

A furious reaction is expected; in particular from 40,000 nurses who took the picket lines for nearly eight weeks and gambled on the last government succumbing to pre-election pressures for a 10.5pc pay rise and a shorter working week.

The Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association, who were forced to back down in May, put their case to the benchmarking body instead but upped their claims to nearly 20% in a forceful submission last July.

(BMcC)


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