Madam, – Prof John O’Hagan, (Opinion, November 10th) like many commentators on public service pay, fails to give due regard to the second benchmarking report (2008) when he calls for benchmarking in reverse.
According to this report, the most recent indepth analysis of public service versus private sector pay, “there is little or no public service premium, if comparison is made with private sector employees in large establishments” which the report notes “accounts for a significant majority of public sector workers”. Despite this lack of a premium, “a discount of up to 12 per cent was applied for pension entitlement” and over 300,000 public sector employees did not receive any increase.
At the time of the publication of the second benchmarking analysis, Ibec was quoted in The Irish Times as saying it “welcomed the fact that pensions had been taken into account”. Since then, a pension levy of up to 8 per cent has been applied, in addition to the contributions already being made for pension purposes.
Prof O’Hagan is correct in saying that substantial cuts, 15 to 20 per cent in some cases, could be justified, especially for the more highly paid public servants, given that this group and all those, including politicians, who had a relativity with them, were the beneficiaries of the Buckley report on higher remuneration in addition to benchmarking. This was in stark contrast to the vast bulk of public servants who had to give up their relativities in order to get a one and only increase in the first round of benchmarking.
Why are the findings of the second benchmarking body being ignored? – Yours, etc,