The pay, terms and conditions of employment for staff employed by Pobal are a matter in the first place for the Board of Pobal.
My Department indicated to the company in 2003 that it had no objection to the payment of the first phase of the benchmarking increase in relation to staff working on the delivery of my Department's programmes. No objection was raised by my Department to the payment of further phases of the benchmarking award after my Department had verified that satisfactory progress had been made under Pobal's (then ADM) change and modernisation action plan.
No additional funding specifically for the payment of the benchmarking awards has been provided.