A major civil service union has threatened to block the Government's decentralisation programme because of a row over promotions for staff remaining in Dublin.
The Civil and Public Services Union criticised the policy of making promotions conditional on agreement to leave Dublin, saying it would penalise staff who chose not to leave the capital.
The union, which represents clerical officer grades, says it will withdraw cooperation with decentralisation unless the Government revises its promotions policy.
The union is holding its annual conference in Killarney.
Earlier, the union slated employers for suggesting that public servants should receive no pay rise under the next round of benchmarking.
The comments were made last week by the Director General of the employers’ body IBEC, Turlough O’Sullivan.
Mr O’Sullivan said that benchmarking, which had delivered an average pay rise to public servants of 9%, had been too generous, did not deliver value for money and said there should be no award from the next round of benchmarking.
However, the General Secretary of the CPSU, Blair Horan, rejected this.
Mr Horan said Mr O'Sullivan's comments were a bit rich given that he had not been heard to criticise very generous executive pay awards in the private sector.
Mr Horan said that public servants had delivered a verified change and modernisation programme in return for their pay rise.
