Benchmarking will go ahead, says Ahern

THE Taoiseach yesterday firmly ruled out any changes in the benchmarking pay deal for the public service.

Declaring himself “a supporter of the public sector”, Bertie Ahern rejected calls by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to scrap the first payment of €500 million due in January 2004.

Mr Ahern said the agreement was “already in place” and there was no possibility that the €1.2 billion per annum deal would be renegotiated.