Ervia (formerly known as Bord Gáis Éireann) is to accept a pay proposal from the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) following a dispute with its Group of Unions in recent months.

The Group of Unions will now be balloting the proposal with their members.

The dispute came to light following a decision by Ervia in 2014 not to pay any of the "at-risk" element of pay, known as Performance Related Awards (PRA’s), to certain staff in respect of the years 2013 and 2014. The Ervia Group of Unions considered this decision to be a breach of the agreement with the company in relation to pay and referred the matter to the LRC. Ervia, in accordance with agreed dispute resolution procedures, engaged in the recently concluded talks.

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The proposal now put forward by the LRC is that:

• The pay model introduced to Ervia in 2013 should be implemented in full immediately across the Ervia group, with modified proposals for Irish Water.

• The pay model should apply in Irish Water from 2017. Before then, an interim arrangement will apply where Irish Water employees revert to an increment-based model for a period from January 2014 to the end of 2016. Irish Water employees will receive non-pensionable annual increments ranging from 1.5 to 3% effective from January of each year following their appointments.

•The PRA element of the Ervia pay model will therefore not apply to staff in Irish Water for this interim period to the end of 2016 and the increments which are applied to Irish Water staff during the interim period will be withdrawn when these staff revert to the Ervia pay model, with effect from 01 January 2017.

(CD/MH)