Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 224: To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the staffing levels of the private offices and constituency offices of Ministers and Ministers of State in his Department; the salary of each; the same figures for this time in 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23180/12]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The number of persons currently employed in each of my and the Ministers of State's private and constituency offices together with the full year salary cost in 2012 and similar figures for 2011 are set out in Tables 1 to 3 below.

The 2011 salary costs are lower than the 2012 full year cost because fourteen Ministerial appointed staff were appointed after the formation of the Government in March 2011, with some not being in situ until May 2011. Therefore the figures for 2011 are not full year figures and are therefore not comparable with the 2012 figures.

Both the private and constituency offices in my Department are staffed in line with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform guidelines. As indicated in the tables below both I and Ministers Ring and Kelly currently employ three staff each in our constituency offices. This is one less than allowed number of staff for constituency offices, which is four. It should be noted that this marks a considerable reduction from the levels of staffing permitted under the previous government where there were a maximum of six staff in each Minister of Government's office.

TABLE 1 – Minister (Deputy Varadkar) Staffing

TABLE 2 – Minister of State (Deputy Ring) Staffing

TABLE 3 – Minister of State (Deputy Kelly) Staffing