Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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384. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans for sanctioning the engagement of and expenditure on special advisers to Ministers of State who do not attend Cabinet; if he will provide details of requests made to his Department by any Department on behalf of Ministers of State in terms of the possible appointment of special advisers to assist them in their roles; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20493/20]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware on the commencement of every Dáil, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform issues guidelines setting out the arrangements for the staffing of Ministerial Offices. The Guidelines for the 33^rdDáil are currently awaiting Government approval.

Appointments to the position of Special Adviser are made in accordance with Section 11 of the Public Service Management Act 1997 which states that the Government may by Order, appoint Special Advisers to the Minister or Minister of State who is assigned to a Department or to a Scheduled Office provided that the number of Special Advisersshall notin the case of a Minister (other than the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste or the leader of a political party registered in the Register of Political Parties) be greater than 2, in the case of a Minister of State who regularly attends meetings of the Government be greater than 2, and in the case of any other Minster of State be greater than 1.

All appointments to the position of Special Adviser require a Government Order to be made.

At this stage no requests for sanction have been received for the appointment of Special Advisers to a Minister of State, this process will start once the Guidelines have been approved by Government and details will be published on the DPER website.