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Keep an Eye on those Secretaries
Read more about: Election Spending, Irish Election, Parties 
The Indo has a story about the latest wheeze to get around the SIPO spending rules at election time. TDs are to ask secretaries to take leave around the election and work as volunteers;
If secretaries agreed to work as volunteers it could save sitting politicians up to €3,000 in wages. Taxpayers would later pick up the bill when the TD allows the secretary to unofficially take the time off later in the year – when they are being paid by the Oireachtas.
Secretaries fear they will be bullied into taking holidays by the threat of not having their employment contract renewed if they object. One secretary, who asked not to be identified, said: “Many members of the secretariat have concerns about being forced to behave in such a dishonest manner. If the member is not re-elected, who will honour the agreement that they take ‘unofficial’ holidays later in the year?”
She continued: “Overtime will not be paid either during ‘official holidays’ and secretaries often work 18-hour days in an election campaign.”
She added: “In the past this attitude has seen secretarial staff travelling around the country receiving little or no expenses, with many suffering huge levels of out-of-pocket expenses.”
So if you happen to have any candidate’s secretaries come to the door, ask them are they working or volunteering.
The SIPO consider office and secretarial expenditure part of an election outlay so the TDs look likely to “save” €3,000 or so which can be spent on posters and leaflets. It is pretty crafty but not half as crafty as spending your money now so that the SIPO doesn’t have to know about it. It is only in the 30 days before an election that the SIPO requires expenditure for so all the election posters from most parties you are seeing now are being done under the radar as it were.
Recently on his radio show and in his Irish Times column, Vincent Browne took issue with this loophole since it appears to facilitate those with the cash/backers to get out early and spend as much as they like in the very early stages of an election. Considering that the campaign has been going since last September there is a lot more than 30 days worth of spending being done and little move to examine the SIPO’s role in examining spending.
I’m trying to make sense of this story. Obviously secretaries will be paid anyway, even if they are on leave. What this story seems to be saying is that TDs will ask their secretaries to put themselves down as on leave for the election period, so that they can say that the secretary’s wages for that period were not part of their election expenses, as the secretary was on leave and not working for them during that time.
I think anyone trying this would put themselves at risk of making a false declaration, as the secretary will almost certainly be carrying out many of his or her normal duties during the election period, and thus cannot be said to be on leave.
Also, as far as I know the Oireachtas will not be looking for TDs to reimburse it for the wages paid to secretaries, as is suggested in the article. They will have to account for the value of the secretarial service as part of their election expenses, but not pay for it themselves.
Ryano is right – plus, it’s illegal under the various bits of legislation about annual leave for an employee to continue doing their normal work while on annual leave. If someone did that, it’s quite likely that SIPO would end up coming back and forcing the TD to declare those costs as expenses – potentially pushing them over the spending limit.
The increases in spending limits announced today should roughly cover the cost of a TD’s staff for a month anyway.