Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It is hoped that we can move on the commencement of the talks shortly. The terms of the pay agreement for the private sector under Towards 2016 are due to expire shortly. I expect that the next plenary meeting which will review the agreement this month will provide the basis for the initiation of formal talks, including those related to the new pay round. The preliminary discussions will take place during February and it will be into March before we get into the serious discussions on the issue, but a lot of preparatory work hopefully will be done if we get agreement at the February talks to enter into them.

The Deputy has asked several questions on the benchmarking report. As provided for under Towards 2016, implementation of the benchmarking report will be discussed by the public service employers and unions in the context of the arrangements on pay and conditions to be put in place on the expiry of the new current public service pay agreement. We have learned from long experience that while these talks can be onerous in terms of time and effort, the benefits nationally of reaching agreement, in terms of certainty and industrial peace, far outweigh the burden on those who are involved in them. In preparing for the forthcoming negotiations, it is important that expectations are kept in line with the economic realities we face here and that are being faced throughout the organised world. National partnership agreements have served us well and I hope that what is a very good and tried and tested approach can once again be relied upon in helping to meet the emerging challenges that we face as a small open economy. We can see all over Europe the type of pay settlements that were reached, involving few if any increases at all, in country after country in the latter part of last year and the early part of this year.

Regarding the nurses, the first point is that every organisation was asked to put its case to the benchmarking process. All parts of the public sector and the wider public service were asked to do so. The national implementation body's intervention in the nurses' dispute was timely and produced comprehensive proposals to address the issues that were in dispute at that stage between the Irish Nurses Organisation, INO, the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA, and the Health Service Executive, HSE. These proposals were the result of many weeks of intense engagement with the parties within the social partnership process in the latter part of 2006 and the early months of 2007. The proposals were designed to be fair to nurses, to other parties in the social partnership agreements and to taxpayers through cost neutrality, and to ensuring that they involved no reduction in services for patients.

Nurses were not promised that benchmarking would deliver a pay increase — nobody was. Rather they were told that it was the proper way to have their claims addressed. The parties to the dispute made submissions to the benchmarking body and the body dealt very comprehensively with the nurses' claim, probably in more detail than any other case.

The report went into substantial depth and detail on the nurses' claim which it did not do for other groups in the public service. The benchmarking body examined 38 healthcare sector grades and recommended pay increases for ten of those, including the four senior nursing grades, the clinical nurse manager grade which got 6.8%, the assistant director of nursing in non-band 1 hospitals which got 10%, the director of nursing in band 3 hospitals, 10%, and the director of nursing in band 1 hospitals, 10%. These increases also applied to 17 other nursing grades, linked to those four grades, which include the directors and assistant directors of mental health nursing, the directors and assistant directors of public health nursing and the advanced nurse practitioners. A total of 1,800 people in senior nursing posts will benefit from pay increases of up to 10% at a full year cost of approximately €12 million arising from the benchmarking increase. While the nursing unions may feel that not every issue was helped, any fair examination would show that they achieved far more than other sectors. That is the reality of the position.

I answered a question on the pay review last week but it is important to note that the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector, the public service benchmarking bodies and the reports and recommendations have to be considered together.

That said, the benchmarking body reported five years ago whereas the review body carried out its last analysis in 2000. Consequently, the same period is not being covered. As another pay review body is not due to be convened until 2011, effectively this will have been the only review body for an entire decade, since its predecessor. This should be noted clearly and if the increases are larger, it is because they are for a far longer and more sustained period. It is also important to note that when making comparisons between comparable public and private sector jobs, the review body made an adjustment of 15% to allow for the advantageous pension rights of public sector workers.

I do not see the benchmarking report as being other than difficult. As I noted last week, Deputy Kenny's views the last time were highly critical. I refer to his point that far higher increases of 8.9% were paid last time. However, that was based on what was happening in the comparable private sector grades during the late 1990s and earlier this decade. This time, the examination and analysis of the equivalent grades did not show such an increase. The position differed at the top end of the private sector, which showed very large increases, albeit for an extremely small number of people. Such increases do not go through the organisations and this has been highlighted clearly in the report.

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