Despite Government Ministers signaling support for renewed talks between the social partners, no discussions have taken place according to incoming Congress General Secretary Designate, Patricia King.

At a press conference to announce her appointment as Congress General Secretary on Wednesday (21st January), King said: “I have not been party to any discussion with anybody on the Government side and as yet I have not come across anyone that has.”

She added that she would not be commenting on the prospects for new social partnership talks “until we see if there is anything on offer and if there is, what it is, what mechanism and what are they talking about.”

On Monday (19th January), Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, said: “Rather than having a re-establishment of social partnership, which at the end was a failure, I would like to see something where people had a way of inputting between elections as a general principle and to what their priorities would be through those civil society organisations that represent people.”