Employers and unions were summoned to Government Buildings yesterday to try to agree some form of broad framework on pay, pensions and jobs before Tuesday's budget.

"There is a big push on now to see what, if anything, can be agreed but the detail will be in the budget," said one industry source.

The target by tonight is for some broad agreement between the social partners, which will then be thrashed out in more detail with the government after the budget.

On pay, Siptu's Jack O'Connor said while the unions were prepared to amend the terms of the existing national pay agreement, they want to maintain the "integrity" of the existing deal.

The deal agreed last September provides for a 6% pay increase in two phases of 2.5% and 3.5%, payable over 21 months.

While the unions are understood to be prepared to spread out the payments over a longer period, Brendan McGinty of the employer group Ibec is maintaining the organisation's tough stand that all pay increases be deferred until the end of 2011.

"We really need pay cuts," said McGinty, who added that the country urgently needs to regain lost competiveness.

On pensions, the unions are pushing the government to introduce what they argue would be a cost-neutral scheme to protect workers pensions which have lost billions in value over the last few years.

The Unite union, which represents workers in Waterford Glass, said yesterday it would take legal action against the government over its failure to adequately protect the Glass workers' pensions as requir­ed by EU law, unless it agrees some pension protection scheme.

On jobs, the unions are looking for a €1bn job-retention scheme. In this regard, it is understood the government is strongly considering a more flexible approach to social welfare payments.