Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On a programme on the national broadcaster on Saturday, I set out clearly that it was not helpful of me or any other Minister or Minister of State to make sidebar comments in this way when the person mandated to do the job was the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin. I feel strongly about this. The Government has mandated the Minister and his Department to run the talks and to report back to it on their success or otherwise. It does not help if I or anyone else stands in the way of those talks by making public comment.

We are very much involved in these intensive talks. There is a short timeframe for them. The Minister set it at a number of weeks to the end of February. Everyone who sat down on the first day of those talks is still there today. This is a constructive engagement on the part of public service unions. The Government is ambitious for the talks. We want them to succeed. We do not want to impose a unilateral arrangement if no agreement can be found. We believe that we can find agreement in circumstances in which the same public sector unions have been central to the radical reductions in numbers and total payroll costs during the past four years. They are up to the challenge and task that lie ahead.

This is not easy. It is difficult returning for a second and a third time to a group of people who have seen their core pay reduced. However, the Government has signed up to an agreement with our international funders and with the Irish people. The Government's mandate is to have a deficit of just under 3% by 2015. One cannot do this if one excludes 36% of all public expenditure. This is the context of the discussions.

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