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Taoiseach Micheál Martin was forced to defend the appointment of advisers to 10 ministers of state, as he was pressured in the Dáil by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald for cutting weekly pay for pandemic unemployment.
On Tuesday, the cabinet approved the appointment of special advisers to the 10 ministers, overturning an earlier decision they would share by a group of appointees.
Mrs. McDonald contrasted the appointments and salaries with the reductions applied to the weekly pay for pandemic unemployment of € 350. This was reduced to between 200 and 300 euros, depending on the income that people earned before the crisis. More than 150,000 people are receiving the payment.
“I am amazed and stunned that your government has approved the hiring of 10 advisers for junior ministers at a time when payments to people who have lost their jobs are being cut,” she said, adding that “€ 350 is not a fortune”. .
“Nobody in this chamber has 350 euros. I would dare to say that the 10 special advisers to their junior ministers receive a lot more than 350 euros. “
Ms. McDonald cautioned that with the payment cuts, the end of mortgage payment gaps, and the end of the ban on evictions, there was a danger that “people would become more terrified of losing their jobs, their home and not supporting their families from contracting the virus ”.
He said the cut needed to be reviewed and reversed.
Mr. Martin defended the reduction for budgetary reasons and accused Ms. McDonald of “hypocrisy” on the matter of the appointment of advisers. He noted the number of special advisers his party employed in the Northern Ireland Executive.
“You were one of the original enthusiasts for special advisers,” he said. “So stop the hypocrisy on that subject.”
Justice Minister Helen McEntee defended the decision, saying that ministers make decisions that “impact the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people.”
The sources said that several of the 17 Ministers of State “defended” the hiring of the 10 additional advisers, in addition to the three employed by the three Ministers of State who sit at the Cabinet table. The 10 were also allocated pro-rata among the Coalition parties, with Fianna Fáil ministers getting four, Fine Gael four, and the Green Party two.
Who receives the advisers?
The beneficiaries are: Minister of State for the Elderly and Mental Health Mary Butler; The Minister of State for Disability, Anne Rabbitte; The Minister of State for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne; Minister of State of the Department of Finance Seán Fleming and Minister of State of the Office of Public Works Patrick O’Donovan.
Others who will have advisers are: the Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion, Josepha Madigan; The Minister of State for Employment and Retail Trade Damien English; The Minister of State for Research and Development, Martin Heydon; The Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan; and the Minister of State for Community Development and Charities, Joe O’Brien.
The remuneration of special advisers ranges between € 87,325 and € 101,114 for those who work with senior and “super-junior” ministers who attend the Cabinet and between € 67,659 and € 78,816 for advisers to State Ministers.
Some sources across the government privately criticized the timing of the advisors announcement, given that it came on the day the pandemic payment cuts were implemented.
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