Robert Watt's €292k appointment 'sets a dangerous precedent', say TDs

Watt is to receive an €81,000 pay rise to be the country’s top health official

Robert Watt, who has been in the role as secretary general on an interim basis since January, is set to be formally approved by Cabinet tomorrow to take on the €292,000-a-year role, despite the calls.

The decision to award Robert Watt an €81,000 pay rise to be the country’s top health official should be halted as it “sets a dangerous precedent”, the Opposition has said.

Mr Watt, who has been in the role on an interim basis since January, is set to be formally approved by Cabinet tomorrow to take on the €292,000-a-year role, despite the calls.

The appointment is coming at the behest of Health Minister Stephen Donnelly and Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who had earmarked Mr Watt for the job and were prepared to agree to the higher salary.

However, the issue has caused considerable unease within the Government parties with backbenchers expressing concern as to the public mood on the issue ahead of likely cutbacks later this year.

The Oireachtas Finance Committee, together with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), has not completed its investigation into the matter and committee chairman John McGuinness has hit out at the failure of key players involved in the decision to answer its queries.

Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy told the Irish Examiner that the appointment is likely to see a slew of similar pay rise claims from other secretaries general.

“This appointment was meant to be an international search and this is the result," said Ms Murphy. 

It sets a very dangerous precedent and will certainly have knock-on consequences. This was a headhunt, a fait accompli.

“Of course, it should be stopped to allow the committees finish their work.” 

Ms Murphy, who sits on PAC, said despite its efforts, she still has “no idea” where the final increased salary figure came from or how it was decided upon.

Sinn Féin’s public expenditure spokeswoman Mairéad Farrell also severely criticised the appointment. She said, as a result of the appointment, Mr Watt will now be among the highest paid civil servants in the EU.

"This entire debacle made a mockery of the process of top civil service appointments, a mockery of the Dáil committees (Finance and PAC) who had agreed a joint framework for reviewing the appointments process, and a mockery of the notion that we’re all ‘in it together’,” said Ms Farrell.

Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath went before the Budgetary Oversight Committee and told it that the recruitment for the position was to be an open and transparent process. 

“In reality, when Robert Watt was appointed on an interim basis, the writing was on the wall. The process by which the astronomical salary was arrived at was extremely opaque and poor by international standards,” said Ms Farrell.

She said almost no attempt at benchmarking seems to have taken place and there was little written correspondence of any consequence pertaining to this.

The whole thing smacks of the kind of ‘insiderism’ that we think of as jobs for the boys.”

The Department of Public Expenditure has previously said the new salary is “deemed to be commensurate with the scale of the responsibilities, including the vaccine rollout in the immediate term and the challenges of implementing the Government’s ambition for the rollout of SláinteCare and the budget of €21bn for Health”.

Mr Watt is known to be a combative operator within the civil service and has previously been critical of budget overruns in the health service.