Government’s advisers cost €99k per week

THE Government’s host of special advisers are among the biggest hidden beneficiaries of the recordsetting delay in forming a new government.

Three months after the election they continue to cost the taxpayer an estimated €98,963 a week in salary payments. Advisers serve their minister through an election campaign until the formation of a new government.

A Public Expenditure source confirmed that: ‘Following a dissolution of the Dáil, the term of office of a special adviser to a minister of the Government terminates on the day the incoming government is appointed, and that of a special adviser to a Minister of State on the day the Taoiseach’s successor is appointed.’

The most recent figures on special advisers revealed that the Government is employing 60 at a cost of €5,146,100 per annum... or €98,963 a week approximately.

Pay for special advisers is linked to civil servant pay scales, and the vast majority of the Government’s advisers are paid on the principal officer scale, with their packages ranging from €75,647 to €105,000.

Five of the 60 are above this grade, while eight fall below it.

The highest-paid special adviser is the long-term Fine Gael apparatchik Brian Murphy who, as the Taoiseach’s chief of staff, earns €157,433 per annum, falling into the deputy secretary bracket.

Advisers to those Ministers of State who do not sit at Cabinet generally command a lower salary scale of assistant principal officer, ranging up to €74,498.

When a new government is finally formed, advisers who have not been appointed by way of secondment from the civil service or some other form of leave of absence from other employments and who, therefore, have no job to return to will receive a further severance payment.

This consists of the more favourable of two months’ pay, or four weeks’ pay per year of service as ministerial personal staff.

The severance payments are in addition to any entitlements that the staff would have under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts 1973 to 2005.

The severance payments are also in addition to payments under the Redundancy Payments Acts and capped at €600 per week.