Special Advisor Salary Cap Breaches

Avatarr

The controversy relating to Taoiseach Enda Kenny intervention ensuring a salary of €127,000 is paid to special advisor Ciarán Conlon had died down, but documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show further breaches have occurred.

Are these appointees worth the breaches in the salary cap, as has been suggested by the party faithful, or is this another example of the continued cronyism which blighted the last government?

Discuss.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0128/1224310867763.html

thebman

Most likely political donations to the party, another reason they should be outlawed.

We have enough problems as it is without allowing people to donate to political parties to get extra favors once that party is elected.

Liam Byrne

I'd be more interested in finding out why the controversy has died down, tbh. Enda should be hounded until he starts obeying his own rules!

PCPhoto

they make the rules so feel obliged to break/bend them to facilitate themselves.

(in short - one rule for them one rule for the rest of us)

I cant understand why we cannot simply make a rule without creating exceptions to the rule, in this case the cap is set - nobody should get more money than the set amount, if they are not willing to work for that amount of money ..... find someone who is.

We dont want politicians telling us they NEED the best, if they needed the best they would be able to get the best, but the best wont work with them.

Going Forward

Can someone explain to me how a "former director of commercial affairs with the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association" is essential to the operation of Varadkar's Department, at the cost outlined?

And also how "a €97,200 salary was agreed for former chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents’ Association Simon Nugent in April 2011" for essential and costly advice for Minister Rabitte, the Minister for Communications? I dont get it.

What exactly are there qualifications and expertise, were the jobs advertised, or were these people hand picked?

Were these people in any way connected to Fine Gael or Labour in the past?

Answers please if anyone knows.

Sponge Bob

Eamonn Gilmore has not one but 2 of these special creatures in his department. They are named Mark Garrett who earns €168,000 and Colm O’Reardon who earns €155,000.

One of Gilmores special advisors earns more than a Uk Government Minister does. UK Government Ministers are paid €161k a year and must resign pretty sharpish if caught doing anything untoward.

Neither of Gilmores creatures knows anything about Foreign Affairs.

chieftan65

Its very very disappointing, These people offered us a real alternative to the previous government. No more gombeen politics, no more cover ups, no more lies, no more overly priced advisors, more transparency, a more efficient government at a much reduced cost, no more cronisim actually a complete opposite to what we were used to and what we had come to despise. These people were the alternative we needed so so badly, they had the plans, the people and the promises. Now a year on what do we have?? The very same dictatorship but with different faces, and to make things even worse, now we dont even have an alternative. Its very depressing people and it wont improve till we eventually say stop, enough is enough. I pray that day is sooner rather than later

Godge

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Eamonn Gilmore has not one but 2 of these special creatures in his department. They are named Mark Garrett who earns €168,000 and Colm O’Reardon who earns €155,000.

One of Gilmores special advisors earns more than a Uk Government Minister does. UK Government Ministers are paid €161k a year and must resign pretty sharpish if caught doing anything untoward.

Neither of Gilmores creatures knows anything about Foreign Affairs.

(1) The document you link to gives a salary of €161k a year but also links to another document which states the UK Government Ministers' salary as £145,492 which is €173,913 - are they hiding something in the small print, a bit Irish?

(2) The other thing to point out is that the UK equivalents wouldn't pay the pension levy which would be about 10% on the level of salary I would guess.

hatrickpatrick

Godge will you defend this if it's true, or will you actually admit that this is the sort of corruption we should have absolutely no tolerance for?

Sponge Bob

What do the two greaseballs in Gilmores office know about foreign affairs ??? They are paid their bloated salaries by that Department.

Godge

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Godge will you defend this if it's true, or will you actually admit that this is the sort of corruption we should have absolutely no tolerance for?

This is getting a bit silly where you keep asking me questions and then when you can't debate the response, you disappear from the debate.


(1) How is it corruption? You bandy that word around as if you know what it means. The most it could be is cronyism, there is a huge difference in the definition of those terms, I wish you would look them up.
(2) Gilmore needs advisers, they must be people whose advice and judgement he trusts
(3) They are presumably employed elsewhere before they take up their position in his Department and he must pay the going rate to get them (maybe even give them a rise to attract them to a 24/7 job
(4) So if you can demonstrate to me that the previous job either of them held was 80% or less of their current salary, then I would consider it worthy of investigation for cronyism, but not any more than that.

Manach

I am not a fan of Mr. Gilmore. But as Godge concluded, the special advisors might be worth it if they in an objective manner advise the minister wisely.

Unfortunately I do not know if there is a system to monitor this. In many jobs there is a feedback process and targets to the met. Here these advisors seem to have been hired without any cursory inspection as to their credentials and salary worth. Thus to ensure transparcy should not some form of data be posted on the dept's website about them (subject to normal privacy rules).

Liam Byrne

Godge wrote: »

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Godge will you defend this if it's true, or will you actually admit that this is the sort of corruption we should have absolutely no tolerance for?

This is getting a bit silly where you keep asking me questions and then when you can't debate the response, you disappear from the debate.


(1) How is it corruption? You bandy that word around as if you know what it means. The most it could be is cronyism, there is a huge difference in the definition of those terms, I wish you would look them up.
(2) Gilmore needs advisers, they must be people whose advice and judgement he trusts
(3) They are presumably employed elsewhere before they take up their position in his Department and he must pay the going rate to get them (maybe even give them a rise to attract them to a 24/7 job
(4) So if you can demonstrate to me that the previous job either of them held was 80% or less of their current salary, then I would consider it worthy of investigation for cronyism, but not any more than that.

Who cares what their previous salary was ?

The rate was published, Kenny swore blindly that the cap was in place and there's no cash to increase the budget.

So if someone wants the job they take the rate that's offered with no "exceptions"

Kenny & Co are currently a disgrace for breaking many of their key election promises.

If they refuse to keep them, let them resign and give the job to someone who'll do what they promise.

blatantrereg

They're not defended by all the party faithful. Kenny's one was described as disgraceful and unbelievable by an FG rep I'm related to on his facebook status.

The advisor isn't very good it seems anyway. How about "Dont blatantly break your word" or "Dont act like a lapdog around sarcozy". See that is stuff he should have been advised and I can say that for free. And I'm not even a life coach (let alone a political advisor)

Godge

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Who cares what their previous salary was ?

The rate was published, Kenny swore blindly that the cap was in place and there's no cash to increase the budget.

So if someone wants the job they take the rate that's offered with no "exceptions"

Kenny & Co are currently a disgrace for breaking many of their key election promises.

If they refuse to keep them, let them resign and give the job to someone who'll do what they promise.

Well, don't know about you, but when Kenny et al., are going into discussions with the EU or making policy decisions, I want them to have the best advice available. I am sure we will all agree that the civil service haven't covered themselves in glory over the last 10 years so a few advisers brought in and paid what they are worth is money well spent.

I can tell you that I have played hardball with at least two of my previous employers where I told them the rate advertised was not enough. Both times I got an increase over the advertised rate (not as much as I would have liked) but they wanted me for the job so they paid it. If Gilmore's lads have done the same, what is the issue?

Sponge Bob

Godge wrote: »

Well, don't know about you, but when Kenny et al., are going into discussions with the EU or making policy decisions, I want them to have the best advice available.

Couple of bog standard Labour Party Hacks getting paid a full UK Ministers salary by Gilmores department is not the "best advice available" as you quaintly put it.

Unless you can PROVE otherwise of course. :cool:

twowheelsonly

Godge wrote: »

Well, don't know about you, but when Kenny et al., are going into discussions with the EU or making policy decisions, I want them to have the best advice available. I am sure we will all agree that the civil service haven't covered themselves in glory over the last 10 years so a few advisers brought in and paid what they are worth is money well spent.

I can tell you that I have played hardball with at least two of my previous employers where I told them the rate advertised was not enough. Both times I got an increase over the advertised rate (not as much as I would have liked) but they wanted me for the job so they paid it. If Gilmore's lads have done the same, what is the issue?

The issue is that once again they're saying one thing and doing another. Again. And we're paying their wages so for the time being they're effectively Public Servants.

Also IMO, it's the 'Special Advisors' over the past 10 years that have been just as culpable in getting us into the mire as the Civil Servants that you so readily blame. Are you saying that a Minister and a Government Party, only recently elected on the back of being the 'Best man for the Job' can't be trusted to attend a meeting without advice from a highly paid puppet? And puppets they are. How many of them are trained Accountants/Economists/Negotiators/Legal Eagles ??
If they're that good why don't they do the job and sack the Ministers that depend on them.
Our current Government has the might and the brains of two major political parties behind them. Why do we need these add ons?
The 'Special Advisor' is something that has only crept in in recent times. Strangely enough right in line with our 'Boom and Bust'.

Liam Byrne

Godge wrote: »

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Who cares what their previous salary was ?

The rate was published, Kenny swore blindly that the cap was in place and there's no cash to increase the budget.

So if someone wants the job they take the rate that's offered with no "exceptions"

Kenny & Co are currently a disgrace for breaking many of their key election promises.

If they refuse to keep them, let them resign and give the job to someone who'll do what they promise.

Well, don't know about you, but when Kenny et al., are going into discussions with the EU or making policy decisions, I want them to have the best advice available. I am sure we will all agree that the civil service haven't covered themselves in glory over the last 10 years so a few advisers brought in and paid what they are worth is money well spent.

I can tell you that I have played hardball with at least two of my previous employers where I told them the rate advertised was not enough. Both times I got an increase over the advertised rate (not as much as I would have liked) but they wanted me for the job so they paid it. If Gilmore's lads have done the same, what is the issue?

The issue is that Kenny & Co promised the shareholders/taxpayers that the cap wouldn't be broken, and since we don't have the money that's a pretty obvious issue.

hatrickpatrick

Godge wrote: »

This is getting a bit silly where you keep asking me questions and then when you can't debate the response, you disappear from the debate.

Here I am, could you point out any threads I have abandoned? Sometimes if I'm busy I don't have time to post here that often but I usually do my best to come back to anything I was debating when I was last here?

(1) How is it corruption? You bandy that word around as if you know what it means. The most it could be is cronyism, there is a huge difference in the definition of those terms, I wish you would look them up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption
"Political corruption is the use of power by government officials for illegitimate private gain."
Seems like corruption and cronyism are intrinsically linked, if you go by the above definition. Politicians helping themselves and their friends. Abuse of power.

(2) Gilmore needs advisers, they must be people whose advice and judgement he trusts

True, I'm not disputing that. It's still no excuse for breaking the rules, if you don't want to cap salaries then don't announce it in order to get some popularity by making false promises.

(3) They are presumably employed elsewhere before they take up their position in his Department and he must pay the going rate to get them (maybe even give them a rise to attract them to a 24/7 job)

Then again I ask, why announce a cap in the first place if it's unworkable? Oh yeah, to gets some nice headlines and steal a couple of votes.

(4) So if you can demonstrate to me that the previous job either of them held was 80% or less of their current salary, then I would consider it worthy of investigation for cronyism, but not any more than that.

That's irrelevant. They announce rules. They break them. End of story.
If you're not going to follow rules then don't make them, and certainly don't use them to get yourself favorable publicity. It's dishonest, opportunistic, and vile.

Sponge Bob

Labours special advisors are ultra low grade. One of Gilmores lot got his brother imposed by Gilmore onto the Labour ticket in Clare and the one in charge of Energy and Telecommunications 'special' 'advice' is a former Travel Agent.