Eoin Reedy

We want to work with them over the next number of weeks and months on.

It'll be up to them whether they choose to do so.

I hope they do, because if they don't, the message to our 44 unions and our 600 members is, folks, we're on our own.

The only way we're going to be able to protect pay and your incomes and your household incomes, which is crucial for families and for working people, is through the workplace, through higher pay demands that match inflation.

And the concern we have, Ciara, is, you know, by all accounts, inflation is probably going to double this year, at least 4%.

It was 2 point odd percent last year.

That puts pressure on everybody.

So, you know, the genie is out of the bottle.

The government have crossed a Rubicon.

I could use more clichés to explain it, but I think you get the message.

Well, quite frankly, I think we've always had strong bargaining power.

I mean, we're the largest civic society group on the island.

We represent 800,000 odd workers across the island, 600,000 in the Republic of Ireland, in the private sector, the public sector, the very significant commercial semi-state sector.

But I suppose the message that many of our members and many of our unions have taken is that the moderate approach that we have adopted in recent times

has seen an element of sand being kicked back in our face, and that's not acceptable, and we're not going to have that, quite frankly.