Micheál Martin defends the salaries of his eight special advisers

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has defended the salaries of his eight special advisers, after it emerged they cost the exchequer just over €1m a year between them.

Mr Martin currently has eight special advisers, including his deputy secretary and assistant secretary, each of whom is each paid more than €100,000 annually.

Details published by the Department of Public Expenditure show that the highest paid is Mr Martin’s deputy secretary, who earns over €210,000 annually.

The highest paid special adviser in Britain, prime minister Keir Starmer’s Cork-born chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, earns the equivalent of €185,000 per year.

Speaking in Ringaskiddy, Mr Martin said it was a simple matter of fact that ministers and taoisigh required advisers.

“Government is becoming increasingly more complex, and people in that area work night and day, and work flat out, in terms of supporting the political arm and the executive arm of government.

“It’s important,” he said.

Balance was needed, he said, and he repeated that members of Government need advice.

“You know, like strong economic advice, that’s very important in the context of where we are today, and in terms of decisions we have to take in terms of the budget, the National Development Plan, or how we navigate tariffs and so forth,” he said.

Asked whether individual salaries of more than €100,000 per annum could be considered value for taxpayers’s money, the Taoiseach said he did not believe in “the dumbing down of politics”.

“I just believe that people are entitled to salaries too, in all walks of life.”

Mr Martin noted that he was not the first taoiseach to have advisers, stating that “there was a time, decades ago, when such advisers did not exist.

“I think the Labour Party was the first [with a] system of programme managers and advisers,” he said.

“It was the correct decision back then, and they would have done it with the 1992 Fianna Fáil-Labour government. Prior to that, you had only a very few, but that led to accusations that there was a permanent government running the country.

“So, you do need balance in all of this, you do need advice.”