Acting Garda commissioner to get €30k pay increase
Acting Garda Commissioner Dónall Ó Cualáin is to be paid the full €180,613 salary his predecessor Nóirín O’Sulivan got, the Irish Examiner has revealed,
Robert Watt, the secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, has accepted a request from Noel Waters, secretary general at the Department of Justice, to increase the salary.
Deputy commissioners normally are paid €152,162 according to official figures.
“That sounds reasonable, thank you, Robert,” Mr Watt wrote on the letter from Mr Waters on September 19.
Making the request, Mr Waters wrote: “I write to request sanction for the rate of pay applicable to a Garda Commissioner to be paid to the Acting Commissioner for the period during which he is acting”.
Mr Waters pointed to the fact that during the seven month period during which she acted up as commissioner, Ms O’Sullivan was paid the full commissioner rate.
“I anticpiate the process for the selection and appointment of a new Commissioner will take at least three months or more. I believe that the same arrangement should be extended to the current acting Commissioner as of 11 September,” he wrote.
Mr Waters suggests that the time served as acting commissioner should be considered as part of Mr Ó Cualáin’s pension entitlements.
Mr Waters said this principle should only to apply to a person acting up where a vacany exists.
