Proposals for a new public sector pay deal have been agreed and are to be put to a ballot of workers.
It is understood that Government employees earning over €185,000 will face a pay cut of 10% under the proposals.
Pay cuts would begin at 5.5% for staff earning over €65,000 and rise progressively to the 10% figure.
Unions say premium payments for Sundays are to be reduced to time-and-three-quarters. Overtime payments have been preserved at a lower rate.
If agreed by members, the deal will run from July 2013 until 2016.
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said: "These proposals constitute a fair and balanced agenda to repair our public finances.
"The revised measures recommended by the LRC meet the budgetary targets of the Government and address many of the concerns expressed by the staff representatives during the negotiations.
"All public sector workers have already made a significant contribution to our economic recovery, however, these further measures are absolutely required to achieve a sustainable payroll cost."
Mr Howlin said that while it is now up to each union to bring proposals to their members, he hopes public servants will accept the necessity for the "balanced" measures.
Spokesperson for ICTU's Public Services Committee Bernard Harbor said the proposed deal is fair to all public servants.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Mr Harbor said it was fair in two respects, as it took more from those who earned more, and the package as a whole did not fall disproportionately on any group of workers.
Mr Harbor, who also works for the IMPACT trade union, said union officials would not be selling the deal to members, but rather would be informing them about the proposals "warts and all", and that ultimately it would be up to the members to decide whether to accept it.
He also said there was no split between frontline and non-frontline workers, as many of the unions that had remained until the end of the negotiations represented frontline workers.
Mr Harbor said the union officials could not have red-circled certain members, as that would not have been fair, but he did think lower-paid workers would take less of a hit in the proposals that had been agreed.
He said he did not buy the proposition that the proposals were unfair, as he said the entire package had to be looked at as a whole.
Sinn Féin has called on the public service unions to reject the proposed deal.
Deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the proposals only "tinkered at the margins" of the issue of 6,000 public servants, whom she claimed were overpaid.
The Dublin Central TD said that those on less than €35,000 a year would see their pay cut and their increments frozen.
She said that if the Government was serious about fairness it would have tackled the issue of high earners in a straightforward way.
Ms McDonald told reporters that any public service union that recommended the deal to its members should "hang its head in shame".
Earlier, SIPTU President Jack O'Connor said that if a deal was reached, union members would be faced with a serious choice.
He said: "The issue that would be faced ... by all of us in the trade union movement is to try to decide, is the proposal better than what would happen in a Government-legislated pay adjustment?"
"Is it as good as, or better, than what we could reasonably expect to receive through a protracted industrial battle? That's the question that we're all faced with."
Uncertainty over deal's implications for some unions
Last night, the Irish Medical Organisation, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Civil Public and Services Union, and Unite walked out of the talks.
They warned that they would mobilise all their resources if the Government attempted to legislate for pay cuts.
Gardaí had already refused to participate.
It remains to be seen whether the Government will proceed to legislate for pay cuts for those who have not taken part in the talks.
Mr Howlin has said that members of the public service, represented by organisations that remained outside or abandoned the talks on a new public service deal, will ultimately accept the agreed proposals.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One Mr Howlin said that this will be what he called "the last ask of public servants".
He re-iterated that the new deal will supersede the Croke Park agreement, and so if it is accepted by the majority of public servants, he said that it would apply to everybody.
Mr Howlin said that he understood that some public service workers did not want to make a contribution to the savings being sought by Government, but he said that that was just not possible.
This morning, the General Secretary of the INMO said that it will be consulting with its members following its withdrawal from discussions on a new public service workers agreement.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Pat Kenny, Liam Doran said he is quite sure INMO members will reaffirm the executive council's view that the cumulative impact of the Government's bottom line proposals would be too punishing on its members.
When asked about the prospect of industrial action, Mr Doran said that "no one is talking about hell and brimstone and blood and thunder at the moment".
However, Mr Doran said that if there is any attempt to impose cuts on its members, the INMO will mobilise to meet TDs advocating such measures.
He said: "We've arrived at a view where we just simply can't countenance a situation where people on that low and middle income can be asked to contribute more, we think that will be reaffirmed.
"We have to wait for the decisions of other unions. I think there's an awful long way to go still before we get to the end of this democracy stage of this and then I think we'll see where we are."
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