Top public salaries in Ireland to be benchmarked against Europe

Salaries for top-level public servants, politicians and judges will be benchmarked against rates in other EU countries rather than “over-inflated” top-level private sector pay in Ireland, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan announced in his supplementary budget.Last week the majority of TDs resisted calls by Minister Lenihan to drop long-service increments worth €6,400 a year - or almost 6.5 per cent of a their €106,000 a year salary. TDs say they have already taken an average 7 per cent cut through the public service pension levy which was applied to all public servants last January.