Ahern defends benchmarking against criticism

The Taoiseach has expressed surprise at recent criticism by Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) of Government plans for a new benchmarking study of public sector pay.

In a statement welcoming recent positive predictions for the Irish economy, Mr Ahern addressed the issue of public sector pay, saying: "Benchmarking was never intended as a once-off exercise".

He said: "The whole point is to move us away, permanently, from relativities. It is not too many years ago that the public sector was characterised by endless industrial action."

"With people striving for better pay and conditions and others seeking to maintain relativities," he said, "We needed to escape the cycle of leap-frogging claims"

Mr Ahern said he was amazed that the planned second benchmarking exercise starting in 2005 should have taken some economic commentators by surprise.

On Tuesday, the ESRI described the Government's decision to undertake a second study as "perplexing", given that the first study remained so controversial.

The institute's senior economist, Mr Danny McCoy, said he and many others were under the impression that the first benchmarking study was a "one-off" designed to create an "intercept shift" in public sector pay.

Under the first benchmarking study, which concluded in 2002, civil and public servants were awarded an average pay increase of 8.9 per cent. The study evaluated public sector jobs and pay by reference to comparable private sector jobs.

Mr Ahern said: "The benchmarking process offers us a way to compare public service jobs with their counterparts in the private sector"

He said the Government and the trade unions had agreed on the need for "greater transparency" in the next benchmarking.

The Taoiseach insisted the approach had been an essential part of the "overall sound and orderly management of the public finances" and one that would "underpin continued public service productivity gains which will be essential in promoting continued prosperity across all sectors of the economy".