Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 22 Oct 1996

Vol. 470 No. 4

Written Answers. - Departmental Staff.

Ivor Callely

Question:

73 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Finance the resources available to him and the Ministers of State at his Department for the running of ministerial offices and constituency offices in terms of support services, finance and personnel, established and non-established, programme managers and special advisers; if he will give a breakdown in this regards and if he will make a statement of the matter. [19132/96]

Dermot Ahern

Question:

78 Mr. D. Ahern asked the Minister for Finance the cost of salaries and incidental expenses of all programme managers, special advisers and other non-established contract staff in his Department for each of the years from 1994 to date in 1996; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19175/96]

Minister for Finance (Mr. Quinn)

I propose taking Questions Nos. 73 and 78 together.

The full-time staffing, including non-established contract staff, of my private and constituency offices and those of the Ministers of State at my Department, and in the case of the Minister of State Deputy Coveney, also at the Office of Public Works, are shown in the table below.

	Private Office	Constituency Office	Contract Staff*
Minister	8	2	4
Minister of State Coveney	4	—	5
Minister of State Doyle	3	2	5

*Each of the Minister of State has among their contract staff two civilian drivers.

Typing services for my private and constituency offices are provided by staff who also provide a similar service for the Department's press and publicity office.

The staffing levels in my offices and those of the Ministers of State at my Department are within the general guidelines which apply to the staffing in such offices and to which I referred in my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 68 of 17 October 1996.

Apart from the resources referred to above, Ministers and Ministers of State have available to them the normal resources of the Department. The cost of running ministerial offices is met from the Department's administrative budget which is approved by the Dáil as part of the Estimates every year.

The total salary costs of programme managers, special advisers, non-established contract staff, and, where appropriate, their established counterparts in the offices of the Minister and the Ministers of State in the Department of Finance in the years 1994 to date in 1996 are shown in the table below.

	£
1994	206,491.53
1995	254,061.68
1996 (to date)	258,698.09

Because of the difficulty in determining all of the costs and expenses which are incurred exclusively by non-established contract staff it is not possible to accurately assess the incidental expenses of such staff.