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Departmental Staff Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 November 2018

Tuesday, 20 November 2018

Questions (8, 9, 10, 11)

Oral answers (10 contributions)

We have seven minutes left in which to deal with this group. I must ask Members who want to ask a supplementary question to confine their contributions to 30 seconds as there is little point taking the group otherwise.

Brendan Howlin

Question:

8. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach the number of special advisers in his Department. [42206/18]

View answer

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

9. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach the number of special advisers in his Department; and the areas of policy to which they are assigned. [45088/18]

View answer

Michael Moynihan

Question:

10. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Taoiseach the number of senior positions held by men and women, respectively, in his Department. [46804/18]

View answer

Joan Burton

Question:

11. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Taoiseach the number of special advisers and the number of females in senior positions in his Department. [48105/18]

View answer

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 to 11, inclusive, together.

I have seven special advisers working in my private office. These staffing levels are in line with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's instructions on ministerial appointments for the 32nd Dáil.

The special advisers working in my office provide briefings and advice on a wide range of policy matters, as well as performing other functions as I may direct from time to time. They also liaise with other special advisers in each Department so that I remain informed on developments across Government. The details are as follows. Brian Murphy is chief of staff. John Carroll is head of policy and programme implementation. Patrick Geoghegan is special adviser mainly on research and speech writing. Angela Flanagan, Philip O’Callaghan, Clare Mungovan and Jim D’Arcy are the other special advisers.

In addition, the newly appointed Government Chief Whip has two special advisers. Special advisers are also working with the Ministers of State, Deputies Helen McEntee and Paul Kehoe. Those special advisers are employed by the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Defence, respectively. Excluding politically appointed staff, 23 staff currently hold senior positions in my Department, namely, those defined as at the grades of principal officer and above. Of these positions, 13 or 57% are held by men and ten or 43% are held by women.

In line with action 8.5 of the Civil Service action plan, my Department has in place a gender balance action plan. As part of this, my Department has committed to 15 actions to improve gender balance, including further flexible working arrangements and actions and that the gender balance of the nominees for the talent management programme is at least 50-50.

I ask the Deputies to abide by the rule of speaking for 30 seconds only as otherwise all of them will not get the chance to contribute.

The Taoiseach described the special advisers, but how many of them are working in the areas of communications, the media and public relations? I do not know if I caught what he said correctly, but did he say there were five male and two women special advisers? Did I get that wrong? He said there were seven special advisers. I just want him to clarify his comments as I could not hear him properly. I heard him mention the names Angela and Clare, but the rest seemed to be male names.

Last year the Taoiseach indicated that there were to be three basic principles in how he intended to run the Department of the Taoiseach. He said he would reorganise Cabinet committees to make them more dynamic, but it has since been revealed that they rarely meet, irrespective of the urgency of the issues involved. The health reform committee is almost dormant, while the committee responsible for broadband has met once this year. We all know what happened on that issue before a meeting was scheduled for this week. The Taoiseach also said he wanted to align the Department closely with Government policy priorities, but in practice this simply meant a major increase in resources for marketing. He indicated that he would ensure his team of advisers would see to it that active progress would be made in dealing with priority issues. Will he explain if he is happy with the level of engagement by his staff and the Department on health issues? Some years ago the Department took a formal role in overseeing budgetary restraint in the Department of Health, but given the record Supplementary Estimates required to keep that Department going, is the Taoiseach satisfied with how it is operating? Will he explain how he ensures the Department stays closely engaged on housing and major infrastructural projects such as broadband provision?

There are nine special advisers.

There are nine.

There are two working on press and media matters and seven on policy and other matters. Of the nine, six are male and three are female. I mentioned Angela and Clare, but perhaps I forgot to mention Sarah who is head of the Government Information Service. One third are female; therefore, it is the same proportion of women as in the Labour parliamentary party. It is not a bad figure in that sense.

It is not the same as for political staff.

It is one third.

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