Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, to the House. The chickens have come home to roost and the double-digit public spending spree of 2001 has caught up with the Government. An election was just around the corner in 2001 when a reckless Government lashed out public money as if there was no tomorrow. As the Minister of State said, public spending increased by a whopping 20.1% over the already inordinately high 2000 figure. People were fooled and bought the bonanza.

There was a tomorrow and it arrived with a vengeance with the publication of this Book of Estimates. An increase of more that 20% in 2001 has been reduced to only 5% in 2004. The Minister of State confirmed the galling reality that the bulk of this 5% increase will be gobbled up in non-productive wage increases for the public sector. This will account for approximately €1.1 billion of the overall €1.9 billion increase. It is a colossal amount. The already massive public pay bill is being pushed up by €540 million under the national programme. Benchmarking will cost €305 million and other pay increases to the public service will cost €265 million.

Fine Gael has taken a courageous but entirely correct position on the issue of benchmarking. We have said in clear and unequivocal terms that benchmarking should not be paid. We have stated that the cost is too high and with the sorry state of public finances, the whole exercise is too costly. Public servants have already been well looked after in the various partnership agreements, including the last one. We have rightly pointed out that in the absence of verifiable and tangible improvements in public services, the deal should be called off. A debate was held on this issue in the House during Private Members' business. In the debate, I called for the publication of the findings of the verification groups. We have not yet seen anything of the findings of any verification group, either in the shape of an interim or final report.

The reaction of the Government parties to the Fine Gael position on benchmarking has been particularly amusing. There were chuckles and taunts that Fine Gael had shot itself in the foot and by alienating 280,000 public servants, we were in effect committing political suicide. What the Government parties failed to realise was that for every person employed in the public service that will benefit – or think they will benefit – from benchmarking, there are five people employed in the private sector. Many of these people are working their fingers to the bone with no guaranteed income, let alone increases. These are the people who will contribute the bulk of the whopping benchmarking increases for those working in the public sector.