Special advisers’ salaries ‘money well-spent’, Michael McGrath says

The appointment of government special advisers is “money well-spent” with a return on the investment when people of the right calibre are recruited, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath has said.

He defended the jobs that pay between €87,325 and € 101,114 for advisers to senior and “Super Junior” Ministers who attend Cabinet and from €67,659 to €78,816 for advisers to Ministers of State.

He said “the work special advisers do is really valuable” as he pointed to his own experience.

“I am a new Minister and have one person working with me at the moment. The amount and volume of work that is coming our way is phenomenal. “I was in the office until after 11 o’clock last night working through a range of issues.”

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‘Right calibre’

He said “you need as much help as you can get” adding that “provided the right people with the right experience and qualifications, people of the right calibre, are appointed” it is “money well-spent and we do get a result on that investment”.

Mr McGrath was responding during question time in the Dáil to Sinn Féin spokeswoman Mairéad Farrell, who said it was “fast becoming a circus” as she pointed to the 17 advisers the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Green Party leader will have between them.

The Galway West TD said: “When Ministers have entire departments to assist them in their work it seems less than prudent to spend taxpayers’ money on costly advice sourced from elsewhere.”

Ms Farrell said that for all the talk of fiscal prudence, the public viewed the appointments as “reckless spending” on special advisers. She asked was it fair that when so many people had to do with less “Ministers continue to have more”.

Salaries to be published

Taoiseach Micheál Martin will have a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, three special advisers and an economic adviser. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar “is to have an aide-de-camp, despite no longer being the leader of this country, or is he simply taoiseach-in-waiting?” as well as five or six advisers while Green Party leader Eamon Ryan will have four or five advisers.

Ms Farrell called for the details of the advisers and their salaries to be published.

Mr McGrath said the Government would be fully transparent about the appointments, details of which would be published on his department’s website when all were formally approved. The said the positions were in keeping with 1997 legislation.

The Minister said special advisers had a role to play but he acknowledged Ms Farrell had made some valid points. He stressed there would be a “huge challenge” to implement the objectives in the programme for government “at a time when we are in many respects trying to rebuild our country in the context of the fallout from Covid-19”.