Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are 15 non-Civil Service staff employed in my office and the offices of the Ministers of State, Deputies Michael Ring and Alan Kelly.  

In my departmental duties and responsibilities, I am aided by one special adviser, Mr. Brian Murphy, and one press adviser, Mr. Nick Miller. Furthermore, in lieu of a personal assistant, I appointed a policy adviser, Mr. John Carroll, whose terms and conditions are at the personal assistant grade.  

The Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, is aided by Mr. Jim McGrath, who advises him in regard to his departmental functions and media matters and is employed at the personal assistant grade. For the Deputy's information, the personal assistant grade is the equivalent of the parliamentary assistant grade in Leinster House. The Minister of State, Deputy Ring, is advised by Mr. Paul McGrath on departmental matters. Mr. McGrath provides his services free of charge.  

In regard to the remaining non-Civil Service members of staff in my office, there is one personal secretary who works on constituency matters. There are two members of staff, a personal secretary and a clerical equivalent, in the office of the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly. In the case of the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, he is aided in constituency matters by one personal secretary and one personal assistant. In addition, each of us has two civilian drivers. As the Deputy is aware, the practice of the last Government was to have all members of Government driven by full-time Garda drivers. This was an expensive practice that diverted gardaí away from front-line duties. We also provide our own cars.  

All of these staff are employed in line with Department of Public Expenditure and Reform guidelines on the staffing of the offices of Ministers and Ministers of State. By way of comparison with the above, my predecessor in this Department, Noel Dempsey, had, in November 2008, three politically appointed members of staff employed at the special adviser pay grade or similar as well as a personal assistant and a personal secretary. At the same time, there were ten civil servants employed in Mr. Dempsey's private and constituency offices, as well as five in the Minister of State's. There are eight civil servants between my private and constituency office, and four in each of the offices of my Ministers of State.

The Deputy will no doubt agree that we are doing more work than the Fianna Fáil-Green Party-Independents Government with fewer staff and other supports.

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