The benchmarking pay awards will cost local authorities €161 million annually, force increases in service charges and lead to a cut in services, Fine Gael claimed last night as it continued its campaign to have the pay awards postponed. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports.
The extra local authority pay bill will add €125 annually to service charges if local authorities decide to raise all the necessary revenue from such charges when they fix their 2004 budgets later this year.
"This fact puts the recent bin protests, where waste charges of €130 per annum are the norm, into stark focus," said Fine Gael's environment spokesman, Mr Bernard Allen.
Already, the Cork county manager, Mr Maurice Moloney, has warned that benchmarking will cost his council €10 million next year, and it could not afford to pay the extra money without extra subvention from the Department of the Environment.
"We're trying our best to give a service for which we don't have enough money. The choices will become more painful and it gives me no pleasure saying that," Mr Moloney told Cork county councillors on Monday.
The Fine Gael spokesman said the Minister for the Environment and the Government had refused to pay any part of the extra pay bill faced by local authorities. "The full-year cost of the benchmarking award will run to €1,200 million when it is fully implemented.
"With local authorities around the country employing a total of 31,624 people, or 13.5 per cent of the 235,000 covered by benchmarking, the full-year cost to local authorities will run to approximately €161 million each year," Mr Allen said.
"Already, local authority managers have made it clear that the cuts will come in overtime rates for its staff - i.e. it is going to affect the lowest paid amongst those working in local authorities."
The extra wages bill can be met by one, or a combination of, four options, namely increased local service charges, increased business rates, cuts in services or job losses," the Cork North Central TD told The Irish Times.
Warning that 1,287,958 householders will pay more to cover the pay increases, Mr Allen said: "Benchmarking in its current guise has the potential at local authority level to be the silent secondary charge on all services."
The public was being "left vainly waiting" to see what extra productivity would be on offer from State employees before the benchmarking award was paid. So far Fine Gael strategists insist that its tough stand on the issue is meeting with public support, Mr Allen said.
The debate was on "value for money" and had at least thrown some light on what the deal was doing for the taxpayer. "What has had little discussion is the manner in which benchmarking will quietly introduce another stealth charge on every household in the country of €125 as local authorities desperately try to balance their books. Meanwhile, the customer still vainly waits to see what they will get for their money," he said.