Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 February 2017
Committee on Budgetary Oversight
Fiscal Outlook, Competitiveness and Labour Market Developments: Discussion
2:00 pm
Ms Patricia King:
We have not set a time period on it because we expect to go into discussions with the employer in May of this year. The last thing we want to do or should do - anyone who is used to negotiations will know this - is start setting given amounts of money. We have some preconditions but it does not make sense to be giving ideas to the employer. The employer has the wherewithal to do all sorts of queer things with those figures. It would be inappropriate for me to directly answer the question. However, I am suggesting without any equivocation that unwinding FEMPI as an instrument is important from our point of view.