Seven in 10 say €292k pay for top civil servant not justif ied
Controversy deepens as Donnelly’s bid to lure mandarin Watt revealed
SEVEN in 10 people feel that a salary of €292,000 for the top civil service role in the Department of Health does not represent value for money, a new poll has found.
The Ireland Thinks poll for the Irish Mail on Sunday found that 71.9% of people said ‘No’ when asked if the controversial €91,000 increase on the previous salary for secretary general was justified.
Slightly over one in six people – or 17.1% – said it did represent value for money while the remainder, 11%, said they didn’t know one way or the other.
The poll is likely to sustain pressure over the pay controversy, which shows no signs of abating.
It has also emerged that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly worked hard in the background to get civil servant Robert Watt transferred to the Department of Health, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
He has been seconded from his role as secretary general as the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to act as interim secretary general in Health while a competition gets under way to fill the post permanently.
The MoS has also learned Michael McGrath, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, in an attempt to quell the anger of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party over an €81,000 pay increase for the post of secretary general, said that he hoped that the new candidate might have a ‘vocation’ for the job and that they didn’t have to ‘accept the salary in full’.
Fine Gael ministers and officials across the Government are furious at what one described as a ‘totally Fianna Fáil-created controversy, as bad as the Séamus Woulfe affair’.
There is anger at the backlash over the decision to award the new €292,000 salary. The official government line is an ‘international competition’ for a suitable candidate has started. However, Fine Gael ministers believe the Government will be damaged if Mr Watt secures the post permanently.
The MoS has also learned that TDs and senators were sharply critical of the manner in which the terms and conditions for the new secretary general were agreed.
Senator Pat Casey asked a question at a party meeting 10 days ago of Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister McGrath.
Mr Casey said that ‘if financial reward is going to be the criteria to get somebody to carry out this role’, then the Government might not get ‘the right person’ because he believed the candidate should have ‘a vocation’ and a ‘vision’.
Mr McGrath responded to Mr Casey that the pandemic was the ‘No.1 priority’ and that lots of decisions were being made ‘to help Stephen Donnelly and his team’ to manage the virus.
Mr McGrath, whose department signed off on awarding the new boss in Health €81,000 more than their predecessor, replied spikily to Mr Casey that ‘no one is currently being paid that salary’.
Despite the Government saying officially that there is an international competition on to get a new secretary general at the Department of Health, sources in the department say that Mr Donnelly wanted Mr Watt to come over from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
‘What he’s been doing, was working hard in the background to get Robert Watt in,’ a source said.
‘It is as bad as the Séamus Woulfe affair’