I propose to take Questions Nos. 3, 4, 5, 21 and 106 together. Public service pay costs are set to increase by well over 10 per cent next year if all liabilities to public servants are to be met. Increased pay spending of this order on a continuing basis has serious implications in 1992 and beyond, if the targets for the Exchequer borrowing requirement set out in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress and in the Programme for Government are to be met.
Under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, the national debt to GNP ratio is to be reduced towards 100 per cent by 1993, and as part of this, broad balance on the current budget is to be achieved. The target in the Programme for Government is for an EBR of not more than 1.5 per cent of GNP in 1993. The Government are committed to adhering to those targets.
There is widespread acceptance that corrective action is needed to deal with next year's budgetary problems. On 8 October 1991, the Taoiseach, accompanied by the Ministers for Industry and Commerce, Agriculture and Food, Social Welfare and myself, met the social partners in the Central Review Committee under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress to discuss the general economic and fiscal situation.
Following that meeting, the Government have undertaken a rigorous examination of departmental spending estimates for 1992. In parallel with this process, a series of bilateral meetings has been held at official level with the social partners in order to identify how they might contribute constructively to finding solutions to our problems. Following the conclusion of these meetings, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Labour met the employer organisations on 25 November 1991 to discuss various proposals in the areas of training and employment. A meeting between the Taoiseach and Ministers on the one hand and the ICTU on the other, has now been fixed for tomorrow to discuss various issues arising from the earlier bilateral discussions and the meeting with the employers in the context of the developing budgetary position.
I also met representatives of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions on 22 November last. At that meeting I outlined the difficult budgetary situation facing the Government for 1992 and the need to adhere to our targets for the EBR. I indicated that in finalising the package of measures necessary to deal with that situation, the Government would be looking at all possible options — including public service pay — and all sectors of the economy. I asked the ICTU representatives to meet me again the following week. That meeting has not taken place.
Pending conclusion of the discussions with the social partners, who are parties with the Government to the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, it would not be possible for me to indicate the position which the Government will adopt on the matters referred to in the questions.