Ms Geraldine Tallon:

Maintaining the status quo for existing staff, we considered what allowances should apply to new beneficiaries and whether there was genuine additionality involving the undertaking of arduous work and unsocial hours, namely, the criteria applied by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in its allowance review. We applied the criteria to the local government sector in a way we did not expect the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to do in respect of our sector. If we believed some allowances were outdated and should die out with existing beneficiaries, we were not going to claim that they should be applied to new entrants. That was our starting point.