Alan Kelly
Question:1. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach the number of special advisers that will be hired by his Department. [22238/20]
View answerTuesday, 15 September 2020
Questions (1, 2)
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:2. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach the number of special advisers he is planning to hire in his Department. [23666/20]
View answerOral answers (20 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together.
Under the terms of the Public Service Management Act 1997, Ministers and Ministers of State who regularly attend Cabinet meetings may request the approval of the Government to appoint special advisers. The Act also provides that other Ministers of State may also appoint a special adviser. The requirement for specialist policy input and advice is a matter for each individual Minister to consider, having regard to his or her area of responsibility and the support in place in the relevant Departments.
I have begun the process of putting in place a range of appropriate advisory supports that I might need in my role as Taoiseach and head of the Government. The make-up of my team currently consists of a chief of staff at deputy secretary level, a deputy chief of staff at assistant secretary level, a part-time economic adviser at assistant secretary level and three special advisers at principal officer level.
In line with the provisions of the Public Service Management Act 1997, two special advisers may be assigned to the Government Chief Whip. There is currently one special adviser at principal officer level assigned to the office of the Government Chief Whip. Approval for the appointment of an adviser to the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs will be sought by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
As outlined in the programme for Government, a number of reforms have been implemented to ensure openness and constructive co-operation within the Government. These include the establishment of an office of the Tánaiste and an office of the leader of the Green Party within the Department of the Taoiseach and located in Government Buildings. Special advisers in the office of the Tánaiste currently consist of a chief of staff at deputy secretary level and four special advisers, three at principal officer level and one at assistant principal level. Special advisers in the office of the leader of the Green Party consist of two joint chiefs of staff at assistant secretary level and three special advisers at principal officer level, two of whom are part-time. It should be noted that all of the above appointments are subject to Government approval over the coming weeks, following which relevant contracts, statements of qualifications and statements of relationships will be laid before the Oireachtas.
The Taoiseach's Department likes its advisers. I received a written response to a parliamentary question from the Taoiseach last week with details of 18 special advisers in his Department. The Irish Independent estimated yesterday that the cost of 15 of those advisers was at least €1.5 million a year. The Taoiseach's response did not, however, list the three Government press secretaries that are also being hired. If those three are added to the 18 special advisers, the total number of special advisers across the collective offices of the three party leaders in government is 21. That is a hell of a lot of advisers. If those costs are estimated on a pro rata basis, they come to approximately €2 million. Does the Taoiseach intend to hire any more advisers? There are 21 already. I am not even making a political point here. It is ridiculous. Is this the line? Is 21 enough? Do the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste or the leader of the Green Party intend to hire any more advisers?
Given that we are in a pandemic, I would have hoped that one of the totality of the 21 advisers would come from a public health background. I would not have any issue with that. It would have been desirable and useful and might have been helpful today. I would have thought that a good idea. Do any of the 18 special advisers listed, or the further three Government press secretaries, have any background in health whatsoever? I ask the Taoiseach to clarify that. It would be helpful if one of the 21 did, given where we are as a country. I am surprised that there is not one among the whole lot within the Government's collective cabinets, given the new profile of the Tánaiste. I might be wrong. I ask the Taoiseach to outline whether that is the case.
There are many Ministers of State wandering around the place wondering if they are going to get an adviser. I understand there is a bit of a dispute between the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste on this matter. Will there be a school of advisers or will the Ministers of State have individual ones? Those advisers have not been hired yet. The Government Chief Whip has one adviser but he is sitting at Cabinet. Will those who are sitting at Cabinet be left with just one adviser, or two, or will they be part of the school? In the response received from the Taoiseach, John Carroll is listed in the office of the Tánaiste. He has now been moved up to the role of Fine Gael general secretary. I congratulate him on that. Is there now a redundancy there as well? Those are my questions for the Taoiseach.
When the Taoiseach was leader of the Opposition, he would regularly get up and berate the then Taoiseach, who is now the Tánaiste, for excessive reliance on special advisers.
Not on advisers. I never did that.
He definitely did.
It was a separate issue.
He lambasted the Tánaiste weekly for reliance on PR and accused the then Government of being a Government of spin. It is quite extraordinary to have 21 advisers, including three press secretaries. On top of that, there was an announcement this week that a PR firm will be employed to mediate between NPHET, the public health advisers, and the Government. It will be a buffer which will dilute and finesse the message because the Government has got it so wrong and made such a mess of conveying the public health message that we now need a PR spin team to try to get it right. I put it to the Taoiseach that this is not the right way to go about things. If one wants to instil confidence, clarity and certainty about public health measures, having a load of spin doctors and advisers who specialise in giving advice but may not have any particular expertise in the areas of substance that people want to know about is not the way forward. The Government needs to listen to people on the ground who really know and engage with them more. It would not have to spend so much on advisers or PR people if it listened to the front-line healthcare workers, nurses, laboratory people, doctors or taxi drivers who are out there. It should listen to the people on the ground who actually understand how things work on the ground. Then it might gain clarity about how to convey messages that would bring the public with it. The Government is compounding the mistakes it has made over the last number of weeks by surrounding itself with buffers, PR people and specialist advisers.
The moral of this story is that even legions of advisers cannot save the Government when it is clueless about what it is doing.
With 21 advisers - God almighty - are they advising the Taoiseach or is it that he is not listening to the advice? I am unclear. I have never seen so much incoherence emanate from any Administration. The bar is high for bad government, but the Government is up there. It has exceeded all expectations in a way that is dramatic. What are the 21 advisers costing the taxpayer? What are we to make of reports that the acting Chief Medical Officer provides separate briefings to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste? What is the reason for that? Is it more of this rivalry? Have the Taoiseach's advisers advised him that that is not smart or good government?
It is extraordinary the degree to which Deputies will come to the House and take whatever they read in the newspaper as fact, as the Deputy has just done. I thought she was paying attention to the press conference this morning, but she clearly was not because that question was asked. There are no separate briefings for the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. As the Tánaiste stated, he was briefed once by Dr. Ronan Glynn in the past while, at a half-hour session, and then he had another briefing with the head of the modelling advisory group. There is nothing wrong with that. We have both been briefed jointly, as members of the Covid-19 Cabinet sub-committee, by the acting Chief Medical Officer. This is a non-story, yet the Deputy comes in here and tries to elevate to something that it is not-----
I asked the Taoiseach a question.
The Deputy did not.
Calm down.
She does not ask questions; she deliberately makes assertions to create a propaganda spin, and she is good at it.
Moreover, the Sinn Féin Party is no stranger to special advisers. It invented the whole concept to an extraordinary degree in the Northern Ireland Executive, where it has SPADs, as the Deputy calls them, all over the place. We saw the trouble they got the party into in respect of the debacle over the fuel scheme and so on.
Third, the Deputy has some neck to talk to people about incoherence when Sinn Féin as a party has been in denial for so long about the blatant breaching of guidelines that happened at the late Bobby Storey's funeral. I ask the Deputy to look at how long it took her to apologise for that, yet she attacks everybody else for incoherence and for being in denial. Everyone else in this jurisdiction was accountable for that kind of breach. The Deputy was not accountable and Sinn Féin was not accountable. It is one rule for Sinn Féin and different rules for everybody else in the House. That is the level of incoherence and denial that the Deputy practises, and she is in no position to lecture anybody on these issues.
Will the Taoiseach answer the questions?
I have answered the questions.
To respond to Deputy Kelly, the concept of special advisers is not new. We have three parties, and an office has been established for the leader of each party within that to ensure that the Government can get the programme for Government implemented. That is the origin of special advisers, which the Labour Party, to its credit, brought in when Dick Spring became Tánaiste after the 1992 general election.
He did not have 21 advisers, though.
He was the first to bring in a special office of the Tánaiste, which is what is happening on this occasion. I think it is important and it will happen into the future, of that I have no doubt. It happened in the previous Government, where Independent Ministers had special advisers. The concept and the numbers of special advisers are not new. As a three-party Government, the respective parties are very focused and the advisers' role is to deliver the programme for Government issues.
While I do not want to go into the details of individuals, given that they are entitled to their private lives, the chief of staff has a well-known background in health, having worked in industrial relations at the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and on the front line prior to that. She was also an adviser at the Department of Health for three and a half years, so she is very well versed in health matters. Nevertheless, the acting Chief Medical Officer is the key, along with NPHET, for public health advice, and that is the way it should be in terms of presenting advice to the Government.
To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, I have always accepted the need for advisers in government, which is why, as Opposition leader, I never focused on special advisers, whether with the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, or when the Tánaiste was Taoiseach. I focused on the political communications unit, and had fundamental issues with its structure and how Parliament and the Government should operate. The Government has not hired a public relations firm for the Government-wide plan. The Department of Health has hired advice for public health dimensions, but the Government as a whole has not. There has been a Government communications programme in respect of the pandemic from its commencement, with all the various advertisements that people will have seen on the television, in the newspapers and so on.
We do listen to people on the ground, consistently, and we engage with them. I do that and have done so all my life as a politician. It is not unique to people in opposition. All Deputies do their best to do that. We will continue to do that and to engage with people.
Deputy Kelly's concern for the Ministers of State is very touching-----
I was one myself for a few years but I had no advisers.
I think the Deputy fought hard for one eventually, particularly as a Minister.
There will not be a school and advisers will be appointed to some Ministers of State.
I thank the Taoiseach. Time is up, so I will move to the next set of questions. I ask all speakers, including the Taoiseach, to stick to questions and the responses. It is a general observation.