Benchmarking stance unchanged: FG

FINE Gael yesterday insisted that its stance on the nurses’ dispute is not at odds with a policy document on benchmarking it published in Killarney three-and-a-half years’ ago.

As the nurses’ dispute continued to escalate, party leader Enda Kenny this week offered to intervene within one week and chair the first meeting between both sides if elected to office.

While refusing to state a date for the implementation of one of the Irish Nurses’ Organisation’s key demands — for the working week to be shortened to 35 hours — he went on to say that benchmarking had to be more “open and flexible” in order to allow its second demand — a 10.6% pay rise — to be more productively discussed.

But increased flexibility of the benchmarking process leading to an increase in pay seems to run counter to the thrust of Fine Gael’s policy paper, unveiled at the party’s think-in in Co Kerry in September 2003.

At that time, Mr Kenny said that the country could not afford the €1.2 billion cost of benchmarking and also called for the first tranche of €500 million — due in January 2004 — not to be paid. The party even went so far as to call for the overall €1.2bn per annum deal to be scrapped.

At the time Mr Kenny went on to describe the process as a “bad deal for the taxpayer” and said the Government had failed to achieve matching results in terms of efficiency, performance and reform from the public service.

Acknowledging it then as a high-risk strategy, Mr Kenny described the benchmarking deal as a “vague” plan in which the taxpayer was the only loser.

The Fine Gael stance was criticised by other parties, including Labour, and also came under fire from unions. However, the party modified its position when it later produced a joint policy position with Labour.

Mr Kenny’s spokesman strongly rejected any suggestion that the FG leader’s call for more flexibility and transparency that would lead to higher pay for nurses ran counter to the spirit of the 2003 paper, that essentially called for the whole process to be abandoned.

“His position remains the same. Fine Gael said there was no transparency and no way of judging the criteria for pay awards and if value for money was achieved,” said the spokesman.