TDs hit out at Donohoe over mandarins’ power
FG minister is accused of shying away from moves to make top-ranking civil servants more accountable
PUBLIC Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has been accused of shying away from moves to make the country’s most powerful civil servants more accountable.
The criticism from Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil TDs comes after the Fine Gael minister ruled out a return of the Civil Service Accountability Board (CSAB), which was set up to monitor mandarins’ performance but later disbanded.
In response to parliamentary questions from Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh, Mr Donohoe also declined to say when a review examining the salaries of the country’s top civil servants would be completed.
The Sinn Féin public expenditure spokeswoman also asked Mr Donohoe for his response to concerns over the controversial €80,000 pay rise for Department of Health secretary-general Robert Watt, the country’s highest-earning civil servant with a salary of €294,920. In his reply, Mr Donohoe confirmed there are ‘no current plans’ to re-establish the CSAB or a ‘similar board’. The CSAB was established under the 2014 Civil Service Renewal Plan. Its members were then-taoiseach Enda Kenny, former tánaiste Joan Burton, former public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin and the two most powerful civil servants in the country, – Robert Watt, who was then in charge of the Department of Public Expenditure (DPER), and Martin Fraser, who was secretary-general to the taoiseach at the time.
But as previously revealed by the Irish Mail on Sunday, the CSAB met just four times in 2015 and 2016 before it disappeared.
Ms Conway-Walsh also sought an update from Mr Donohoe on the Senior Posts Remuneration Committee, the body the Government agreed to set up to examine pay for senior posts across the civil service in the wake of the controversy over Mr Watt’s pay rise.
In his response, Mr Donohoe said officials in his department ‘are now progressing the necessary legislation to establish the Senior Posts Remuneration Committee on a statutory basis’.
He added that he would ‘make proposals to Government on these matters in due course’.
However, his response was criticised by Ms Conway-Walsh and by Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness, who chairs the Oireachtas Finance Committee.
Mr McGuinness accused Mr Donohoe of snubbing a series of proposals to make the country’s civil servants more accountable.
The Carlow-Kilkenny TD told the MoS: ‘This is another case study into who is running the show, and it certainly is not a Government that is interested in reform. Instead, they prefer to be the willing cat’s paws of their mandarin masters. They run the country, and the sheep go through the gap.’
Mr McGuinness said this was ‘epitomised by the casual nature’ of Mr Donohoe’s ‘in due course’ response regarding the establishment of the Senior Posts Remuneration Committee.
He added: ‘It is symptomatic of a Government that is happy to be glove puppets for their mandarin masters. And a snub to the hard work [Oireachtas] committees have done on this issue.’
Ms Conway-Walsh said: ‘Accountability in the civil service is vitally important. The most senior civil servants should be held to the highest standards of accountability.’
The Mayo TD said the Department of Public Expenditure ‘was set up with a reform agenda’, but she added: ‘Little change has really occurred at the most senior level of the civil service in terms of accountability. Those at the top, secretaries-general, remain outside of most disciplinary measures available to a minister.
‘Secretaries-general are very powerful and important positions attracting the highest remuneration. We should always be trying to improve accountability by ensuring appropriate checks and balances are in place.’
Last month, Mr Donohoe confirmed that average salaries of secretaries-general in Government departments has risen to its highest level since the Celtic Tiger era.
He disclosed the average salary paid to the 18 civil servants is now €237,249. This is the highest level of pay since just before the economic crash in 2009, when the salaries averaged €258,502.
‘Government is happy to be glove puppets’