Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

To answer that specific supplementary question, as stated in the national pay agreement, the parties considered in its request that the body should seek to ensure the optimum level of transparency consistent with the efficient and effective operations of the benchmarking process. How this is reflected in the report is a matter for the benchmarking body as it is independent. In the last exercise it felt restrained as regards the amount of information it could give because of the assurances on confidentiality that had been given when researching the data underlying its examination. In any event, in an exercise of this type, if endless debate and nit-picking are to be avoided, all information cannot be released and some selectivity must enter into the equation. It would be desirable for the body to give a greater amount of information this time around. However, that is a matter for the body to decide and the Government represents the taxpayer in these matters.

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