The Taoiseach says he sticks by the Lansdowne Road Pay Agreement - despite some unions and opposition parties declaring it to be dead.

Enda Kenny says the Government will respond to pay demands by public servants with a strategy that looks at the entirety of the public service.

The issue was discussed at Cabinet today, and the Public Expenditure Minister is meeting with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions this evening.

Management consultant Eddie Molloy told George Hook that the unions are being 'belligerent, opportunistic and predatory.'

Ministers continue to insist that no extra money is available for public sector pay next year beyond the extra €660 million provided for in the recent budget.

Public servants are due to receive pay increases next year under Lansdowne.

Yesterday, junior doctors became the latest group of public servants to threaten to strike over pay.

Nurses, secondary teachers and gardaí are already demanding early pay increases

SIPTU said last week that it would ballot its 60,000 public sector members for industrial action if the Government did not agree by Thursday to open pay talks by February.

According to projections produced by the Department of Public Expenditure, the cost of demographic changes – principally growing numbers of young and old people – will put additional cost pressures on the State of between €428m and €440m each year until 2020.

Listen to the full interview with Eddie Molloy below.