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DUBLIN (AFP) – The Irish government on Friday rejected an offer by unions of an unpaid leave deal as part of a plan to slash the public sector pay bill.

The government plans a four-billion-euro (six-billion-dollar) austerity package of spending cuts and tax rises in Wednesday’s budget and has said public sector pay cuts are a key part of efforts to start plugging a yawning gap in the national finances.

The government is looking to cut 1.3 billion euros from the pay bill for 250,000 public sector workers.

The unions had offered a “bridging mechanism” for 2010 that would have involved staff taking 12 days’ unpaid leave spread over years to minimise the risk of disruption to services.

But Prime Minister Brian Cowen said the government did not regard the proposals as the basis for agreement and it would now go ahead with the planned pay cuts.

“It is clear that the level of savings generated in 2010 would need to be sustained and, indeed, increased in 2011 and subsequent years.

“The government has made it clear that the fiscal adjustments to be made in 2010 must stabilise the public finances.”

David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said the government’s approach to trying to correct the public finances was “too brutal, too quick.”

Cowen said the government had made it clear for some time that the public finance position was “unsustainable.”

“Our tax revenues have fallen sharply back to 2003 levels. This means that we will have a deficit in the region of 22 billion euros this year,” he said.

“To bridge this gap, we are borrowing over 400 million euros a week. This cannot continue. By the end of this year, the national debt will be about 76 billion euros, double the level at end-2007.”

After a decade of “Celtic Tiger” economic growth and big pay awards to public servants, Ireland was the first eurozone country to plunge into recession as a result of the global financial crisis.