THE SALARY for the Minister for Agriculture’s new special adviser has been set at €110,000, meaning his wage level breaches the recommended cap of €92,672.
Ross Mac Mathúna, a former Glanbia manager, has replaced former Greencore executive Fergal Leamy, who left after five months despite Simon Coveney stressing his patriotic credentials, to secure a €130,000 salary.
Separately, a Fine Gael spokeswoman has confirmed that Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar’s special adviser is also chairman of the party’s executive council. Brian Murphy, on a salary of more than €105,000, was previously the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association’s commercial affairs director.
Mr Mac Mathúna has been working as special adviser to Mr Coveney since January. He was a project manager with the food group Glanbia for three years and a consultant with management consultancy firm McKinsey Company for two years.
He worked previously in Germany for the animal health and nutrition firm Alltech. He holds a degree in dentistry from UCC and an MBA from UCD.
Mr Leamy, Mr Mac Mathúna’s predecessor as adviser to Mr Coveney, had been chief executive of Greencore USA, where his salary was €430,000. Last September it emerged he had been headhunted by a private equity firm in London.
Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton’s special adviser Edward Brophy is now the highest paid special adviser outside the offices of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. Formerly a senior associate with Arthur Cox solicitors, Mr Brophy is on a salary of €127,796.
Ciarán Conlon, a former Fine Gael communications director, is paid €127,000 in his post as special adviser to Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton.
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin’s special adviser Ronan O’Brien earns €114,000. Mr O’Brien was chef de cabinet to Ruairí Quinn when the now Minister for Education was Labour leader.
Mr Varadkar wanted to pay Mr Murphy a salary and benefits package worth more than €135,000, Freedom of Information documents revealed, but a “compromise” wage of €105,837 was agreed with Mr Howlin.
Mr Murphy is chairman of Fine Gael’s Executive Council, the body which controls the management and administration of the party, subject to ardfheis authority.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte’s special adviser is Simon Nugent, former chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association, on a €97,200 salary.
The Government instructed Department of Finance officials to draw up new guidelines on special advisers’ pay when it came to power. The new guidelines state special advisers should normally be paid €80,051, the same as the lowest-paid principal officer in the Civil Service. A cap of €92,672 was set, the equivalent of the salary of the highest-paid principal officer.
The Government retained the right to breach the wage ceiling in “exceptional circumstances”.
The cap does not apply to the office of the Taoiseach, where former chef de cabinet Mark Kennelly and Andrew McDowell, Fine Gael’s former economic adviser, earn €168,000 each.
The guidelines also allow higher rates to apply to the office of the Tánaiste, where Mr Gilmore’s chief adviser, Mark Garrett, earns €168,000, and Colm O’Reardon, Labour’s former policy director and brother of TD Aodhán Ó Riordáin, earns €155,000.
