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TRADE UNIONS told to prepare for strike ballot as no basis for public sector pay talks in place
Preliminary meetings fail to find common ground, with current deal set to expire on 1st July 2026. (Irish Times, 18.6.2026)
- Exploratory meetings on a new public sector pay deal have concluded, with union negotiators telling colleagues they should be ready to ballot members on industrial action as there is currently no basis for full-scale talks to take place.
- The two sides have met twice since the Cabinet approved engagement on the issue on Tuesday, 16th June.
In a letter sent on Thursday to the 19 Unions that have members in the Public Sector and are affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), Kevin Callinan, Chair of the ICTU Public Services Committee, said the two sides failed even to agree whether to deal with pay first or last, and the meetings ended without any agreement on how to proceed.
“Accordingly, we have to prepare for the likelihood there will be no agreement in place from July 1st, 2026 [when the current deal runs out] and the possibility that this will be the case for an indefinite period”, he wrote.
Kevin Callinan says the Committee is “preparing a proposed industrial strategy aimed at protecting and improving living standards”, and pursuing individual claims.
He suggests that, based on legal advice, the rules of some Unions may have to be amended so that a common approach can be taken, in the event a ballot on industrial action is called, and says he will provide a further update next week.
The two sides have said they will remain in contact but it not clear at this point whether the Government will agree to address pay early in any process, and include the sort of Social Partnership-style elements Callinan has said he believes are essential.
In addition to chairing the Committee, Callinan is General Secretary of the largest public sector union, Fórsa, the second-largest union of any kind in the country after Siptu.
There are some differences between the various Unions involved, based on the different interests of their members, but there is a common desire to see significant pay rises: with leaders suggesting that inflation around core areas—such as food, fuel and housing—has been running well ahead of wider inflation rates.
It is not uncommon for talks on a new deal to involve a couple of false starts as the two sides set out their stalls, but Callinan has repeatedly said the Union side is prepared to live without an all-encompassing deal if it believes there is not enough on the table to justify another multi-annual Pay Agreement.
The one about to expire, however, delivered basic pay increases of 9.25% to most public sector and Civil Service staff, with an additional 1% in “local bargaining” (essentially a fund to resolve outstanding local issues).
The lowest-paid staff received increase of more than 17 per cent during the deal’s 2½-year lifespan.
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IMMIGRANT LABOUR—ALMOST two-thirds of new jobs had to be filled by immigrants, official figures show (Daily Mail, 20.5.2026).
With nearly full employment, just over 218,000 of the more than 355,000 new jobs created between 2019 and the end of 2024 were filled by foreign workers, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) found.
In vital areas of the economy, non-Irish nationals made up almost half of the workforce, the figures from 2024 show.
The CSO report said:
“Labour supply is important for enterprises.
“In 2024, non-Irish nationals represented a significant proportion of employees in the administrative and support services (45.6%), accommodation and food services (45.1%), and information and communication (41.4%).”
Economist Michael Taft, of SIPTU, said:
“Well over 50% of job creation in the last four years, say in the hospitality sector, has been taken up by non-nationals.
“In terms of the health sector nearly a third of all the jobs created—public and private—were taken up by non-nationals. There’s a huge demand for labour.
“You go to the tech sector—a huge proportion are new entrants. They’re very well paid, but they’re very highly skilled and we don’t have the skill base to meet the demand in the information and communications sector.’
He added:
“Imagine if there was a huge clampdown on immigration, immigration was slashed, a lot of hospitality businesses wouldn’t be able to operate because they wouldn’t have people.
“What would happen to nursing homes? There would be a huge problem. Never mind if we couldn’t fill the demand in information and communication. It may not collapse but you’d take a hit…
The total number of jobs rose by 355,332 to 2.8million between the start of 2019 and end of 2024, with immigrants accounting for 218,261, or 61% of the growth.
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IBEC is urging the Irish Government to double-index income tax bands in the upcoming Budget 2027 to combat inflation-driven cost-of-living pressures on workers. The proposal also calls for postponing planned PRSI [Pay Related Social Insurance] increases to alleviate financial burdens, as inflationary pressures and lack of bracket adjustments impact workers.
The employer group argues that failing to adjust for wage gains will result in significant, unearned tax increases for employees.
Employers are specifically urging the Finance Minister to double-index Income Tax Bands and Credits, and reduce the Capital Gains Tax rate to 25%. (Irish Independent, 26.5.2026).
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RUNAWAY Food Prices!
The price of food is racing ahead of the general rate of inflation.
The sheer scale of the price shock that has pounded households over the last five years has been revealed (Irish Independent-16.5.2026),
An analysis of a sample of staple food items, diesel, and a pint of stout, shows what has been described as “runaway price increases”.
Some cuts of meat have risen by multiples of the rate of inflation since 2021. Diesel is up 60%, while lamb is up 52%, while a pint of stout increased 27%.
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