Dáil debates
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Other Questions
Ministerial Staff
2:00 pm
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 48: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the action he intends to take to redress the breaking of the salary cap for Ministerial special advisors of which a number are in receipt of salaries that are nearly twice his pay cap of €92,672. [28636/11]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 66: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he signed off on the salary packages awarded to special advisors appointed to Ministers that exceed his own pay cap; his views on the fact that the latter's salaries have exceeded this salary cap; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28635/11]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 181: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of occasions on which special advisors were appointed by Ministers with salaries in excess of the pay scales set out in the new Department of Finance guidelines on special adviser pay; if he signed off on the salary in each case; the Minister from whom the requests came and the reasons given for the breach of the pay guidelines in each case. [28189/11]
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 182: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the basis upon which he signed off on salaries to special advisors to Ministers in excess of the Guidelines on Staffing of Ministerial Offices issued by him in March 2011 in view of the fact that special advisors are to be placed on the Principal Officer standard scale with such appointments generally required to be at the minimum of the scale. [28249/11]
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 48, 66, 181 and 182 together.
The guidelines on staffing in ministerial offices were revised following decisions by the Government on a number of cost saving measures relating to the personal appointees of Ministers and Ministers of State. The guidelines specify that all appointments of ministerial staff, including the pay and terms and conditions of employment, require the prior sanction of my Department. Appointments from outside of the Civil Service also require the sanction of the Taoiseach.
The appointment of special advisers requires the approval of Government in accordance with section 11 of the Public Service Management Act 1997. A Minister, or a Minister of State who regularly attends Cabinet, may appoint up to two special advisers. The legislation provides that there is no limit on the number of special advisers for the Taoiseach and Tánaiste. Special advisers have been employed by Ministers of successive Governments and perform an essential function in providing expert advice, expertise and insights on the key strategic issues facing Ministers on a daily basis.
The guidelines provide that special advisers are to be placed on the principal officer, standard, scale, which currently runs from €80,051 at the minimum to €92,672 at the maximum. They provide that appointments are to be on the first point on the scale except where I approve a higher starting salary. Therefore, in cases where a special adviser's basic pay prior to the appointment was greater than the minimum, it is open to Ministers to seek sanction from me to appoint the person at a higher starting level. The guidelines provide that separate arrangements apply to the staffing requirements of the Offices of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste.
The Government recognised there would be occasions when a higher salary was required in order to secure the appointment of an adviser with particular skills and expertise. On this basis, the guidelines provide for specific individual exceptions in circumstances that are considered to be unique, special or exceptional.
Remuneration in excess of the minimum point of the principal officer standard scale has been sanctioned by me in a number of instances based on the business case presented, which I require in each case. In the majority of cases, this has been based on evidence of higher earnings in the previous employment or the current employment of people who were being recruited by Ministers. Exceptions were kept to the minimum and in all cases value for money considerations were uppermost in my mind. In a number of cases, special advisers have been appointed on substantially reduced salaries compared to what they were earning.
There have been cases where I have approved exceptions for the pay of special advisers, other than in the case of the Departments of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste. Exceptions approved by me include advisers to the Minister for Social Protection, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Education and Skills.
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach has two advisers, Mark Kennelly and Andrew McDowell, who earn €168,000, and the Tánaiste has two advisers, Mark Garrett, who earns €168,000, and Colm O'Reardan, who earns €155,000. I do not know how the Minister can explain to me, the House or the citizens how this is a value for money decision. The Minister said in the House that he has made exceptions in respect of these people.
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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To explain to the Deputy-----
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister sanctioned them.
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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They are excluded from my purview.
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister told me in the summertime that the pay cap would be €92,672. That is a really good salary and is competitive for any level of professionalism yet the advisers in the Department of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste's Department are on almost double that sum. One of the other exceptions is, ironically, the Department of Social Protection. This is the same Department that will pursue to the ends of the earth those who it believes are fiddling the system for comparatively paltry amounts. The Minister has answered the question and has conceded that these guys are on big bucks on the say-so of the Minister and the Government. The essence of my question is that they are well ahead of the cap identified by the Minister. The Minister should tell this House when they will be brought down to the level of the cap, bearing in mind that it is a very substantial sum of money.
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There is a view that special advisers are fair game. I have been privileged to work in three Departments. Special advisers play a unique role as a sounding board. Most of the people we recruited have come at a reduced cost. In many cases we are asking people with full-time, pensionable jobs to give them up and to work for an unknown period of time. We do not know how long their positions will last but certainly we could not give them contracts for longer than five years. We also ask them to work all the hours God sends and have their names published in national newspapers and mentioned in Parliament. Many people who we invited were not willing to do that. We need advisers and every country I know of has political advisers, even for smaller executives such as in Northern Ireland. The Deputy First Minister has three personal advisers, as does the First Minister, because it is understood that even in the absence of complicated matters such as EU-related work or engaging with the troika, a skill base outside the normal Civil Service is required as a sounding board. I want to make a case for ensuring the people we use are not significantly worse off. I agree these are all good wages. However, we are asking people to give a commitment to the State. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste are excluded from the norms of the pay grade, as I explained, so they do not require sanction to be excluded; they are excluded under the regulations already.
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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They should not be excluded. I wonder about the quality of the advice given by special advisers in previous Administrations. I do not have a hang-up about special advisers, but there is a real problem with those salary levels. We have had the universal social charge, pension levies and welfare cutbacks, all of which had to be implemented because things are tough and we are all in it together, yet when it comes to this coterie of people, the rule book is thrown out the window. I am not surprised the Minister cannot justify or explain it, because it is beyond any kind of justification. I put it to him again: I do not accept that Ministers could not get the type and quality of advice the Government requires while keeping advisers' salaries within the very generous cap that he himself identified. What will he do about it? Is the answer that he will not do anything about it - that this is the status quo for a minority, and everyone else just has to live with it?
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I know the Deputy prefers to broadcast than to receive, but I thought I had answered those questions. We are in a crisis as a country. We are marshalling the resources of the State and making decisions that have major impacts in real time.
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Over the last six or eight months the decision was made to establish my Department, followed by decisions on the economic management council, bank recapitalisation issues, the comprehensive review of expenditure and the public sector reform agenda, which we will talk about in other questions. I need help as well as the public service help I have, as does every other Cabinet Minister. We need to have people there for support and they must be people of calibre. Of course one could get people to work for less, but it is hard to ask individuals to leave jobs that are better remunerated, full-time and pensionable - in certain cases I could mention - with a lot less stress and fewer hours, to come and work for a period of time in the public service. We might get people to do it, but Ministers need to be able to select people they know they can work with, who will do the job for them. By and large, I do not begrudge reasonable remuneration packages for those people, and we should defend them. If the Deputy thinks some of them are excessive-----
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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They are. They are utterly excessive, and the Minister knows it.
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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We must consider people with the same level of responsibility in the private sector. We have already lost one, who was much better remunerated before he was persuaded to come and work with a Cabinet Minister, to the private sector. He could not stay because he was head-hunted back. We want people of that calibre to work within our public services, to guide us back. I know this jars with people who are struggling - I appreciate that. However, I would prefer to stand up here and defend a salary scale that most people find difficult to accept than to make the wrong set of decisions that would ruin our country and cost us millions or even billions.
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Were the people I mentioned party people?
Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, Deputy; we are going on to the next question.
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will ask that question again.