Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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2. To ask the Taoiseach to set out the number of staff in the policy and programme implementation unit of his Department. [15759/20]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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3. To ask the Taoiseach to set out the number of advisers who will be employed by the Government; the number of advisers he will be employing in his Department; and the process for the selection of these advisers. [15770/20]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 3 together.

As outlined in the programme for Government, several reforms will be implemented to ensure openness and constructive co-operation within the Government. The details of the roles and staffing of these offices have not been finalised to date. Appointments to these offices will be made in line with the Public Service Management Act 1997 and will be published in due course. These include the establishment of an office of the Tánaiste and an office of the leader of the Green Party within the Department of the Taoiseach to be located in Government Buildings. The office of the Tánaiste will consist of a private office and a policy and programme implementation unit. The purpose of these offices is to support both the Tánaiste and the leader of the Green Party in the co-ordination and implementation of policy within the Government. In particular, the policy and programme implementation unit will assist the Tánaiste in work relating to the Cabinet, Cabinet committees and oversight of the implementation of the programme for Government.

Under the terms of the Public Service Management Act 1997, Ministers and Ministers of State who regularly attend Cabinet meetings may appoint special advisers. The Act also provides that other Ministers of State may also appoint a special adviser. The requirement for specialist policy input and advice is a matter for each Minister to consider having regard to the area of responsibility and the support in place in the relevant Departments.

Having appointed Ministers and Ministers of State to their various portfolios across the Government, I am also considering the advisory supports I might need in my role as Taoiseach and Head of Government. While I have not yet fully finalised the make-up of my team, it currently consists of a chief of staff at deputy secretary level, a deputy chief of staff at assistant secretary level and three special advisers at principal officer level. It is also my intention to appoint an adviser shortly with relevant expertise on economic policy. While not finalised, I anticipate that, in addition to Civil Service support, the office of the Tánaiste will consist of approximately five or six special advisers and the office of the leader of the Green Party will consist of approximately four or five special advisers. In line with the provisions of the Public Service Management Act 1997 there will be two special advisers assigned to the Office of the Government Chief Whip. It should be noted that all of the above appointments are subject to Government approval and relevant contracts. Statements of qualifications and statements of relationship will be laid before the Oireachtas in due course.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I applaud the Taoiseach's commitment to coherence and openness across the Government. However, I would caution that too many cooks can spoil the broth, as they say. It strikes me that this is a most irregular arrangement. Not alone will the Tánaiste have an office within the Department of An Taoiseach, but we will now have an office of the leader of the Green Party within the Department of An Taoiseach.

The Taoiseach has set out considerable resources. He referred to five or six special advisers for the Tánaiste. I presume that is by way of addition to whatever resources the Tánaiste will have in his line Department. The Taoiseach might clarify that. It is similar for the leader of the Green Party. Is that additional to the resources afforded to him as a senior Minister? Are there additional press resources for the Tánaiste and the leader of the Green Party as well?

Critically, what is all of this costing? How does this compare with previous Administrations?

The Taoiseach has appointed 20 Ministers of State, three of whom will sit at Cabinet. I understand, however, there are only two salaries. How will that particular loaves-and-fishes exercise work out? Who is going to lose out in that scenario? The Taoiseach might make that clear for us.

By way of final comment, I understand that responsibility for the coherence and overseeing of the implementation of the programme for Government falls to the Cabinet as a whole. I am very concerned that we now have a holy trinity of taoisigh, or at least a holy trinity of very senior actors, located in the Department of the Taoiseach at considerable expense to the taxpayer.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The Taoiseach was not getting off that lightly.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I was going to come back to the Deputy.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I thank the Taoiseach for his response. However, there is no transparency. I respect the fact that he has not yet made some decisions, but there seems to be an incredible number of advisers. There will be three people in the Office of the Taoiseach and in the Tánaiste's office as well.

It is, frankly, a joke that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade will cost the taxpayer €200,000 because he wants, of all things, a head of protocol and a Garda car and driver. We are going through a pandemic and an economic crash, the likes of which we have never seen. I was part of a Government that picked up the pieces of what happened in 2011. The Taoiseach could look back on some of the comments he made during that time on Ministers, advisers etc.

None of the 20 Ministers of State can have advisers. It would be wrong to put taxpayers through that. I do not have an issue with Ministers of State who will sit at Cabinet having advisers. As Deputy Howlin pointed out in the last Dáil, unless the Taoiseach introduces new legislation, which I am sure he will not do, only two Ministers of State can get the extra €16,288.

How many advisers will there be for the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Green Party leader? Will the Taoiseach cut the extra €200,000 that is going to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade? Will he commit that Ministers of State who do not sit at Cabinet will not have advisers, given that they are totally unnecessary in the current economic climate?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will deal with Deputy McDonald's queries. This is a tripartite Government. In fact, the model for it goes back to when the Labour Party was in government between 1992 and 1994 when Dick Spring-----

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The Taoiseach was there, I was not.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I was a humble backbench Deputy at the time. The Labour Party pioneered the idea of policy people coming in from the political world, which I happen to agree with, to ensure the implementation of a programme for Government.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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That is not the debate.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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People want the programme for Government to be implemented. They want to see through the political commitments that have been made. That was a major turning point in how Government works in terms of the use of special advisers. In the Northern Ireland Executive, the role of special advisers is strong and I have no difficulty with that. We know that special advisers in Northern Ireland play a key role in advising Ministers and working the machinery of government.

Not all of the advisers will be political. Some of them will have expertise in economics or other specific areas. My advisers have been allocated based on particular policy areas. One innovation of the new Government is the reintroduction of some substantive Cabinet committees to work through key areas and objectives of Government, including housing, health and climate change.

Other Cabinet sub-committees, such as that dealing with economic recovery, will meet on a monthly basis to bring a more cross-sectoral and cross-departmental approach to the business of Government. That is why there will be advisers for each party. This approach is to ensure cohesion, genuine partnership and parity of esteem within Government. It is not about one party lording it over another. I have made that very clear from the beginning.

The last Government had, for example, advisers for the Independent Alliance and for an Independent Minister. It had 19 Ministers of State, and this Government has one more. That is hardly earth-shattering.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The previous Government had no advisers for Ministers of State.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I do not agree with that. There is a need and Government is becoming wide-ranging. There are areas, such as insurance, that need specialist attention. As we heard on the Order of Business, it is a key area and it is a good idea to have a Minister of State, together with senior Ministers, specifically charged with trying to deal with that area.

That is the position. When we get further details we will put them out transparently. All of this information will be in the public domain. I will have further details on how advisers will overlap in terms of the line Departments for which the Tánaiste and the Minister with responsibility for climate action and Environment have responsibility.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I seek clarity on that point. The Tánaiste having, in addition to his departmental advisers, five or six additional advisers in order that he can fulfil his duties as Tánaiste strikes me as absolutely extraordinary. For the leader of the Green Party to have four or five additional advisers, as the Taoiseach said, is similarly extraordinary. Nobody is against bringing expertise to the table; on the contrary. We have to be very sure that things are not being over-egged and that this is not a case of sharing the spoils between the three parties in this tripartite Government.

Can the Taoiseach explain to me why the Tánaiste needs an aide-de-camp? What is the thinking behind that? As the Tánaiste is not the Taoiseach, or at least not yet, why would he require that? I do not understand it and the Taoiseach should give an explanation.

Deputy Kelly has correctly raised issues concerning the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Where there is this kind of additionality in terms of resources, Members and, more importantly, the taxpayer need an explanation as to why all of this is happening. The Taoiseach might answer my question on the Ministers of State who will sit at Cabinet. There are two salaries, but three such Ministers of State. The maths of that does not really add up. Is the Taoiseach going to bring in a third €16,000 allowance?

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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If the Taoiseach is going to do that, he will have to bring it to the floor of the House and I doubt he will do so. Will Ministers of State have advisers? They did not when the economy collapsed in 2011, and we are probably in a worse situation now. The Taoiseach does not agree with that now because it does not suit him. However, we can go back through the record if he wants to do that.

A sum of €80,000 multiplied by 20 is not a good use of taxpayers' money. How are we to vet the advisers for Ministers and the Ministers of State who will sit at Cabinet, something I do not have an issue with? They are meant to be specialist advisers. How will we know they are qualified? How can we vet them to ensure they are not political appointees and are instead specialists in insurance and various different disciplines?

I have raised the issue of the aide-de-camp for the Tánaiste. It is a joke. It is an extra cost. Why is it necessary? We still do not know the total number of advisers for the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the leader of the Green Party. We will get to that.

The Taoiseach has to answer my question on Ministers of State who will sit at Cabinet. Why is the Minister for Foreign and Affairs and Trade getting a Garda driver and car? Why is this extra cost to the taxpayer, along with the aide-de-camp for the Tánaiste, being tolerated by the Taoiseach given the current economic situation? I do not believe we can have either of those or advisers to Ministers of State.

If the Taoiseach wants to show example and show leadership he will not have any of them. Their total cost is a serious amount, coming to a seven figure sum, and the Taoiseach cannot justify it.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The architect of this model of government was the Labour Party.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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Rubbish.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is not rubbish. I recall Deputy Howlin and the then Tánaiste, Mr. Dick Spring, won a substantial number of seats. They no longer wanted to play second fiddle to the Fine Gael party and did not go into coalition with them. They entered into coalition with Fianna Fáil and developed this idea. We are political parties, and I do not mean political in the sense that one is just making appointments; we are parties that want to get policies implemented. There must be proper respectful demarcation lines between full-time permanent civil servants and full-time political programmes and political input. That was the idea at the time and it worked. Sinn Féin are no strangers to special advisers in Northern Ireland. We saw that in the RHI report.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach is reaching.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am not even criticising it; I just note it. The emails were flying to and fro on that between all the special advisers of all parties so let us not pretend that this is something new. Ministers of State either mean something or they do not mean. In my view, they mean something in terms of the policy areas that are under their responsibility. The Minister of State with responsibility for disability will transfer to the Department of Justice and Equality. That is a substantive Minister of State portfolio because all of the relevant areas in health to do with disability are being delegated to that Minister of State.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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Let us see the order.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is the whole idea. The Deputy must accept in that situation there has to be a need for policy input to drive things on and get things done.

The security issue has surfaced with regard to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in terms of travel.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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That is a laugh.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy may say that. Ordinarily, Ministers outside of the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality hire drivers that are paid for by the taxpayer and travel-related costs are also associated with that. I am not sure where the Deputy got the figure of €200,000 net. I have no figures on that.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The Taoiseach can tell us the figures.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My understanding is that there was a security aspect to it.

It is my understanding that the Tánaiste sought an aide-de-camp to assist him in his duties in terms of public occasions and events he will attend.

In terms of equality, there are three super junior Ministers, as they are called, or super Ministers of State, at the Cabinet table, and there should be equality between all three. I will not mince around or do the popular thing and say we are afraid to bring anything to the table or to the House. If they are at the table as Ministers of State there should be equality between all three. I will not tiptoe around that.