OUR TDS have smashed the €100,000 barrier for take-home pay.

From today, the pay of every TD is officially in the six-figure bracket as the terms of a national wage hike kick in for workers across the country.

The 2.5pc boost is the final tranche of a pay rise agreed under the national partnership agreement, Towards 2016.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen will try to jump start the stalled talks on a new national agreement this week with new rounds of negotiations between the social partners, unions and employers.

The vast bulk of TDs are already earning over €100,000, when additional allowances, payments and bonuses are included. The basic salary, the minimum wage for TDs, is now €100,191.

Although the Cabinet officially postponed their controversial pay hike awarded by the higher review body, ministers still benefit from significant rises today.

Mr Cowen gets his first pay rise since becoming Taoiseach, as his salary increases by €6,965 from €278,618.

Tanaiste Mary Coughlan's pay goes up by €5,984 from €239,341 to €245,325.

The rest of the ministers' pay increases by €5,493 from €219,703 to €225,196.

Today's pay rise will add €155m to the public sector pay bill between now and the end of the year.

In 2009, the full year cost of today's rise will be €470m.

Every 1pc pay rise costs the exchequer €190m, placing extra pressure on the Government to control its own wage costs as tax revenues drop off.

The increases for ministers and TDs come as consumers face big increases in their natural gas, home heating oil and phone bills this week.

Bills

The price of natural gas goes up 20pc today for more than 500,000 households. For the average home, that means an extra €165 a year, or €13.75 a month, on heating bills.

Eircom is increasing the cost of phone calls from tomorrow. The company says the average increase is 3.8pc, but an analysis shows that the cost of some short calls will rise by up to two-thirds.

The cost of a fixed line rental from the company went up earlier in the year.

The natural gas price increase was sanctioned earlier this year by the Commission for Energy Regulation, which has warned it could have to apply a further increase of the same scale from next January if world natural gas prices continued to increase.

Last month, electricity prices were increased by 17.5pc, also on the back of increased fossil fuel costs. Further price rises are possible in the coming months.

In the run up to to this week's talks, employer group IBEC called on the Government to "cut their own cloth to suit their measure".

IBEC director general Turlough O'Sullivan said ministers needed to address the "significant over-staffing" in the public service.

Ahead of the expected resumption of national pay talks on Thursday, Mr O'Sullivan said the Government needed to show clear leadership in the negotiations.

The pay deal believed to be previously on the table may be reduced by employers in the coming weeks when new inflation figures are expected to show a reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of living.

- Michael Lavery