LABOUR PARTY MINISTER Joe Costello has said that the Croke Park Agreement is the ‘most successful social contract in the history of the State’.
The Minister for Trade and Development has issued a statement this afternoon in response to what he said were “short-sighted and irresponsible” calls for the the agreement on public sector pay and reform to be torn up.
Earlier, his fellow Minister Leo Varadkar said the government was committed to the agreement, which runs until the end of next year, but said that negotiations about extending it or formulating a successor to it would need to happen ‘within six to eight months if not sooner’.
Ahead of December’s Budget pressure is growing from many including backbench Fine Gael TDs for the agreement, which guarantees rates of pay for public sector workers, to be re-examined.
But Costello said today in a statement: “The Croke Park Agreement is the most successful social contract in the history of the State considering the enormous austerity measures contained therein.
“Yet there are constant calls for compulsory redundancies an immediate restructuring of the Agreement and indeed for the Agreement to be torn up.
“These calls are short-sighted and irresponsible in the context of the Progamme of Government and more particularly in the context of exiting the Troika Programme and regaining our economic sovereignty.”
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