Ireland Faces First Mass Public-Sector Strike Since 2009

The standoff is procedural as much as financial: unions want pay settled before productivity talks, while ministers cast that sequencing as a break with precedent. That makes the dispute about the architecture of Irish public-sector bargaining, not just the size of an offer, and it affects roughly 300,000 workers whose services the public depends on daily. Whether either side moves on sequencing, rather than money, is the open question — and the first mass walkout since 2009 signals how far the relationship has deteriorated.