Some aides to TD and Senators earn less than living wage.
According to the Independent, Secretarial Assistants (SA) are on a starting salary earn €11.75 an hour, while the current living wage is €12.90.
Senators can hire up to one full-time SA while TDs are entitled to one SA and one Parliamentary Assistant (PA), who starts on a salary of just over €41,000.
Secretarial assistants however start on €24,324 a year — a rate set for the role in a ‘bygone era’ according to the Independent. Around 200 SA’s work in Leinster House. In contrast a basic pay for a Senator is over €70,000 and a basic pay for TD is over €100,000.
Initially the creation of the role of an SA was for more secretarial duties but this role has expanded over the past several decades. A SA now would be expected to be able to organize events, run constituency clinics and help draft policy and legislation.
Often PAs and SAs in TD offices work the same hours and do the same work, but a title difference means that one earns twice as much as the other. A SA would have to work at least ten years in order to reach the starting salary of their PA counterpart.
The amount in pension payments for an SA after five years of service is €656.23 a year, a pension of 10 years is €1,312.36 a year and after 20 years of service the best they could hope for is €2,624.91
The Oireachtas said that the issue is in consultation with the WRC, the states own industrial relations body.
