I became Minister for Finance some years ago. In my time in politics I have dealt mainly with economic matters. I had great interest in what happened in the Department of Finance and longed to be Minister. However, I never thought that so much of my time would be taken up with the pay element. Much of the Minister for Finance's time is taken up – to an extraordinary degree – with things that never came into my mind at all relating to pay and conditions, groups and knock-on effects in other areas. It takes up an extraordinary amount of time of the Minister and a panoply of officials. The field of cross-sectoral relativities was part of the benchmarking body and the report and was well worthwhile.