Harney keeps €500,000 special advisers

By Mary Regan Political Reporter

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

A SCHOOL could be built for the €514,000 a year of taxpayers’ money spent on keeping special advisers for Health Minister Mary Harney, it was claimed in the Dáil yesterday.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said there is "no longer any justification" for Ms Harney to have a team of advisers, paid for by the Department of the Taoiseach, when she is no longer the leader of a political party or the junior partner in Government.

However, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said Mr Kenny was only raising the issue so he could "get another big picture of himself in the paper".

Mr Cowen said the special adviser regime was similar when Fine Gael was in power: "You know what the game is," he told Mr Kenny.

Mr Cowen dismissed the opposition leader, who he said believed "schools could be built for this or that" and defended the cost of Ms Harney’s advisers. "The fact is that advisers add value to the work of an administration. They assist in making sure policies are being implemented and they comprise a very small part of the overall Government operation," he said.

The Taoiseach himself came under fire in the Dáil yesterday over €2.8 million paid to seven advisers to his department since June 2007 who, according to Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, "are operating purely for the Taoiseach on a political basis".

Mr Cowen said Labour were the first party to introduce special advisers, but Mr Gilmore said the cost has "mushroomed considerably during Fianna Fáil’s term in office".

He said: "The numbers seem to have grown substantially and the salaries seem to have grown."

A further €725,000 was spent since June 2007 on the Taoiseach’s communications unit, something Mr Cowen said was important to "provide accurate and up-to-date information" to the public.

He said the unit will cost €258,000 in 2009, which is a reduction of 15% on last year and "the lowest cost since 2003".

Mr Gilmore said: "The unit listens to the radio, reads the newspapers, takes clippings and cuttings and keeps an eye on what kind of coverage the Government is getting.

"I was surprised that it did not seem to cross Colm McCarthy’s path when he was examining the public service. I could not see a reference to it in the McCarthy report."

In response, the Taoiseach said it was "absurd" to benchmark all Government spending against the cost of the communications unit.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, November 18, 2009