Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach said that a number of agencies and offices in the public sector have achieved reforms, reorganisation and efficiencies. Will that be factored into future measures that might be taken generally in the public service?

I refer to the benchmarking exercise. He will recall that the greatest dissatisfaction about the benchmarking process related to the secrecy that surrounded it. The idea was that posts in the public service would be benchmarked against similar posts outside the public service, yet nobody could ever say what exactly was benchmarked against what, what external comparators were used, what levels of salary, remuneration and so on applied and what was the basis for the benchmarking. If there is a reverse benchmarking exercise, as suggested by Deputy Kenny, can the Taoiseach assure the House that the next time round the full information will be made public in order that the comparisons made will be fully known? People would then be able to outline that a particular post was measured against a particular range of posts elsewhere, the salaries and remuneration packages that apply to these posts and why these comparisons are being made. The last time round all that was made publicly available was the outcome, which was increases in pay, but the rationale and the comparisons done were never made known to anybody.

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