The Telecom Executive considered and noted a memo from the Company re the Christmas pay
 arrangements at a recent meeting.  The content of the salient points are as follows:

The process of providing pay in advance on the last pay date before Christmas for two of the six
eircom pay groups has proven to be a serious drain on resources and difficult to administer. It is intended to revise this practice to administer their pay arrangements in the same manner as all other pay groups.

To illustrate the issue, last year employees in the specified pay groups (mostly COT's and weekly paid clerical grades) received their normal weeks pay ( basic + allowances) on pay date 21/12/06 plus a flat week for pay date 28/12/06.They received no payment on 28th December.  Allowances were then paid a week in arrears for the following two weeks catching up in the third week when two weeks allowances would normally be paid.

This process is time consuming and is, as stated, a serious drain on resources. The revised
arrangements for 2007 provide that normal pay (Basic + allowances) would be paid on the due dates i.e. 20/12/07, 27/12/07, 03/01/08 etc.  There would be no necessity to pay allowances in arrears.