'Galling for people' as government spends €5.3m on special advisers 

Sinn Féin Mairead Farrell has criticised the spend on Government advisers. Picture: Sasko Lazarov

Over €5.34m will be spent on government special advisers this year as the coalition has taken on an unprecedented number of politically appointed staff.

Around 63 policy and press advisers have been appointed by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste as well as senior and junior ministers, sparking calls for greater transparency in the recruitment process.

While the pay bill will total over €5.34m this year, this figure will increase as special advisers receive their annual increments.

Of these, 18 advisers are on salaries of over €100,000.

The figures, do not include the government press secretary Paul Clarkson and the two deputy press secretaries, Nick Miller and Aiden Corkery.

The Attorney General also has the authority to appoint an adviser as well.

Special advisers are directly employed by the minister they work for and come and go with the government of the day. The number of policy and media advisers, who are separate to department staff and press officers, has been on the rise with each successive government and with it their pay bill. The last government employed 60 advisers.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform Mairéad Farrell called for greater transparency around the recruitment of these staff.

She said: "We all know that the Taoiseach and Tánaiste would need political advisers, but the reality is that there seems to be in excess of what we have seen previously."

She added: "When people are struggling to keep a roof over their head in terms of rents and have no prospect of owning their own homes, and then all the people that lost their employment as a result of Covid, the only certainty that they have at this very moment in time is that their PUP is going to be cut in September.

"So for people to be facing that reality on the one hand and then on the other hand seeing these huge sums of money, and huge numbers of advisers at a time when we're in the middle of a health pandemic, that will be galling for people."

Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall said it is reasonable to employ advisers if they have particular expertise in a particular area, but she said "the problem is that too often, people take on party members or friends who don't necessarily have any qualifications in an area".

The Department of Public Expenditure has released salaries relating to 48 special advisers, two of whom have since left their position and have been replaced. These salaries range from €43,662 for two advisers employed on a part-time basis by Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, all the way up to €180,276 for the Taoiseach's chief of staff.

However, another 11 have also been appointed with four of these recruited by senior ministers and the others taken on by ministers of State.

A department spokesperson said the full list of advisers would be published shortly.