Howlin defends ministers' payments

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has defended the payment of an additional €17,000 allowance for ministers of state who attend Cabinet on the basis that they are “significant jobs”.

Addressing an Oireachtas committee today, the Minister said there was a hierarchy of earnings which saw the Taoiseach paid more than the Tanaiste, cabinet ministers paid more than ministers of state who attend Cabinet and ministers of state who attend cabinet paid more than other ministers of state and TDs.

The Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service considered a statutory instrument which provided for an additional allowance of €17,205 to be paid to Minister of State for housing Jan O'Sullivan following her promotion to the post which allows her to sit at Cabinet although not to vote.

Mr Howlin said he believed such a hierarchy of payments should be graduated in relation to levels of responsibility. He said the more onerous the task, the higher the level of remuneration should be.

He said he did not believe a system of flat payments worked in the real world.

The Minister said a minister of state with a seat at cabinet had a “whole of government function” and not just a departmental role. He said such ministers of state had access to all cabinet papers and that it was not just a matter of the number of hours spent at cabinet meetings.

Mr Howlin said the political class had experienced much more significant cuts in pay than public service staff in general.

He said the current Taoiseach was paid 37 per cent less than his predecessor, cabinet ministers 32 per cent less than their predecessors and ministers of State with a seat at cabinet 28 per cent less than their predecessors.

Meanwhile the Minister said the extension of the areas in which members of the Dáil and Seanad can spend their public representation allowance came about after he was approached by representatives of a committee of cross-party TDs.

He said this allowance was used for rent, rates, maintenance, furnishing and use of constituency premises as well as for items such as stationary, He said he extended these categories to include additional secretarial support while not providing any additional level of funding.

“The way we deliver services within the same sum of money may change”.

He said public relations came into the issue as the term “secretarial assistence” in the original allowance encompassed public relations work as some secretarial staff contacted the media or issued press releases.