There will be no additional Department of Finance funds for local authorities faced with huge benchmarking payouts, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, has been told by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
Mr Cullen had approached Mr McCreevy for additional funds to help local authorities after he had been contacted by county councils.
They had told him they would be faced this year with "extreme financial difficulties" in meeting the 25 per cent benchmarking payments and retrospective awards to December 2001.
Local authorities were in a different situation from the rest of the public service sector as it was they themselves, not the Exchequer, which would have to pick up the benchmarking costs, it was pointed out.
In Kerry County Council, the benchmarking bill, including retrospective payments for the first phase of benchmarking this year, will be over €2 million.
A letter from the council seeking financial help from the Department of Finance was passed to Mr Cullen.
The financing of local authorities was in the first instance a matter for the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, a Department of Finance spokesman told the Co Kerry senior executive officer in corporate affairs, Ms Joan McCarthy.
In a reply to the council's letter in late March, Mr Cullen's private secretary said the Minister was "aware of the financial implications for local authorities due to the benchmarking award process and in this regard has written to the Minister for Finance on the matter."
A spokesman for the Minister for the Environment yesterday confirmed that Mr Cullen had sought more money from Mr McCreevy, under the Local Government Fund, for local authorities to meet the benchmarking costs, but this had been refused.
Benchmarking awards had been flagged for some time, and it was up to individual local authorities to make provision for them, the spokesman added.