Madam, - Fintan O'Toole (Opinion, March 8th) omitted to mention benchmarking in his list of public sector "white elephants". It is costing over €1 billion a year and rising in line with future wage increases - about €13 billion over the next 10 years. For the same expenditure, we could have employed about 10 percent more gardaí, teachers, health workers, and so on. Given that there is talk of a new round of benchmarking ahead of the next general election, surely there is an urgent need for an independent, transparent review of the cost and supposed benefits achieved to date.- Yours, etc.,
BRIAN FLANAGAN, Ardmeen Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin.