Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

There are no bonuses in relation to these payments. They are appointed at a certain salary scale depending on their responsibilities. I did not make any arrangements for increases. These increases presumably arise as a result of people moving into other increments. In other words, whatever rules apply also apply to them. As regards the recruitment embargo, these people take up the job in line with the tenure of the Government of the day, so they leave office when the Government's term ends. In that respect, therefore, they will not have the same terms of employment as people in the public service generally.

As the Deputy knows, this system was first introduced back in 1992 during the Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition Government. It has remained with us throughout every period of Government since then. The Deputy made a point about the cost of advisers. Given a total pay and pensions bill of almost €20 billion, the idea that Ministers or other office holders would have advisers, whose tenure coincides with their own term in office for the purpose of providing supplemental or independent advice to the Department and assisting and liaising in respect of whatever jobs and responsibilities they have, puts in context the fact that this is a very small part of the total Government operation. It was introduced at the time for a good purpose and obviously it must be kept under review at all times. Under the Public Service Management Act, there is no limit on the number of advisers a Taoiseach can appoint, but there are arrangements in place regarding Ministers.

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