Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 2 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Remuneration of Senior Civil Servants: Discussion

Mr. Martin Fraser:

I think so, yes. I am not looking for any sympathy for the senior public service or anything like that, it is important to get the right people for these jobs. I would really rather be talking about a proper benchmarked assessment of the labour market. If my experience is wrong about what the labour market says for these jobs, I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I think it would be much better if there was proper benchmarking for these things. People do it, I am aware of reports that suggest what the labour market is but I do not stand over them either. Deputy Stanley listed a whole load of examples of much lower pay. It may also be that is the case. It would be much better if it was much more transparent and people could see the basis on which these judgements are being made.