Taxpayers are kept in the dark on mandarins’ mystery pay increases

The highest-paid civil servants will soon earn even more — but don’t expect any transparency,

LIKE it or not, the cold reality is high-ranking civil servants run the country. Politicians come and go. Some stay longer than others. Some leave a lasting legacy, while others are little more than a footnote in the history books.

When an election is called, those who have been successful enough to become ministers gather up their belongings from their desks before saying goodbye to their departmental staff. The secretary general of the department will be standing at the door waving them off as the politician packs their personal effects into the boot of their car.

Then they close the door and wait for the next minister.

The men and women at the top of the civil service are among the most powerful people in the country — the unelected permanent government that provides the cogs and the oil of our society.

The decisions they make have a direct impact on all our lives. They are responsible for our schools, hospitals, roads and police force. They control the country’s purse strings and, along with politicians, decide how much we take home in our pay packets at the end of the month.

Remember water charges? Who do you think helped draft the legislation on the public’s least favourite environmental policy? Yes, senior civil servants.

They were there when Fianna Fail first proposed the idea back in 2010 and they were there when former environment minister Phil Hogan threathened to cut water supplies down to a trickle if people did not pay their charges. They were there when Alan Kelly decided to take responsibility for the fiasco.

And they are there now as Simon Coveney tries to figure out how to abolish the charges without causing too much grief for Fine Gael.

The secretary generals who run Government departments are paid quite handsomely for the service they provide and so they should be. It’s a high-pressure role which requires finding a balance between practical and political decision-making.

According to figures released to Fianna Fail’s public expenditure and reform spokesman Dara Calleary last week, the highest-paid secretary general is Niall Burgess in the Department of Foreign Affairs on €199,381 before tax.

The three most powerful secretary generals — Department of the Taoiseach’s Martin Fraser, Department of Finance’s Derek Moran and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s Robert Watt — are on €185,350.

Recently appointed Department of Justice secretary general Noel Waters is on €176,350, as is Jim Breslin in the Department of Health.

Good money for an important job and you only get what you pay for, as they say. And that’s an important point because it is us — the taxpayers of Ireland — who are paying these salaries. In April, we will be paying for pay increases for the gentlemen listed above and their counterparts in other government departments. Over the course of the next three years, we will be paying them annual pay hikes.

How much that will amount to we don’t know because the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform — where Robert Watt presides — won’t tell us. Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe, who is the latest politician to walk the corridors of Watt’s department, won’t tell us either.

Despite repeated requests to the department’s press office or directly to political staff members, they won’t tell us how much of an increase we are being asked to pay the country’s highest-paid civil servants.

I say ‘asked to pay’ but we don’t have any choice in the matter. It was agreed almost two years ago under the Lans- downe Road Agreement that senior civil servants earning over €100,000 would see their pay increase over the next three years.

Figures previously obtained by the Sunday Independent showed a civil servant earning €100,000 a year is expected to get a pay hike of almost €7,000, while those earning €120,000 will see their salary increase by more than €8,000. So it would seem those earning around €185,000 will get an even higher amount if it is calculated as a percentage of their salary. But we don’t know because they won’t tell us.

Dara Calleary also tried to find out how much of a pay increase secretary generals will get when he asked about their salaries.

Instead of responding to his query, each department sent back an identical statement saying a circular on pay increases was still being drafted, even though Lansdowne Road was signed off almost two years ago.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and Donohoe are always more than happy to release details of pay increases for gardai, nurses and teachers but are strangely reticent when it comes to senior civil servants.

There was public outcry when it emerged that politicians were to due to get a €5,414 pay hike on top of their €87,258 salaries. Ministers eventually agreed to turn down the pay increases. The controversy was hugely damaging for Donohoe and revealed a political naivety in his ‘keep everyone happy’ routine.

After his most recent capitulation to the public sector unions, which will cost us north of €120m after pay increases were brought forward, you would wonder what Paschal Donohoe has signed off on with high-ranking civil servants.

Former finance minister Charlie McCreevy’s infamous “when I have it, I spend it’ quote has been reimagined by Paschal Donohoe as “if you ask for it, I’ll pay for it” so as to have an easy life.

Given his short but expensive track record in spending our money, it will be interesting to see how big an increase he has agreed with the country’s highest-paid public sector workers.

‘The decisions they make have a direct impact on all our lives’