Irwin Armstrong has criticised the current lack of transparency at Stormont on Special Advisers.
“It’s wrong that special advisers have received a pay hike up to a maximum of £90,000, while other civil servants on much more modest incomes have their salaries frozen. It seems that the politicians at Stormont are operating in a different universe from the rest of us.”
“As taxpayers we pay for no fewer than 8 special advisers to the OFMDFM alone and each of the other eleven ministers also has one of these highly paid appointees, which could be costing us approaching £7 million over the lifetime of an Assembly. All this at a time when the departments are cutting services to the public.”
“In fact we don’t even know the total cost to the public purse because the salaries of Stormont SPADs are kept secret. In contrast the secretary of state, Owen Paterson, a cabinet minister in an administration governing 60 million people, employs one SPAD, whose salary is a matter of public record.”
“When David Cameron became prime minister his government published a comprehensive list of its special advisers, including exact details of their pay grades and salaries. That’s the type of transparency which the public deserves and which the Northern Ireland Executive is failing to deliver.”
“The public is paying for the SPADs at Stormont and the cloak of secrecy which surrounds them is completely unacceptable.”