Last week, the Minister for Finance gave details of the 5,000 jobs which will be shed across the public service. That is one the costs of benchmarking. Some 5,000 public servants will be let go. There will be a major challenge in every Department as a result of arbitrarily paying these increases unless there is some indication of an improvement in services. Fine Gael wants this country to have the finest public servants and the finest public service but, as the leader of another party said at his party's conference some months ago, the whole issue of public service is an issue for the public and an issue about the public as much as it is about public servants. We want to know exactly what is on offer. We want to know what improvements will be made as a result of this deal. From the point of view of my constituents who deal with a local authority or a Department on a daily basis, they are demanding to know how services will improve. There appears to be little evidence to date of any of those improvements. The figure of €1.2 billion is an extraordinary sum of money by anybody's standards. Who would believe ten to 20 years ago that we could afford those increases? The economy has grown and the Government will argue that it is affordable, but when one considers what else could be done with €1.2 billion in terms of providing social and economic services for the public, it is vital that before we rush to pay these moneys, we know what will be a result of that investment and how the public will get a better response. If public service increases are to be fair and proper, surely they must result in a better service for the public, but no indication is available that they will.