The difficulty of hiring election staff at short notice due to full employment has been raised by Dublin city’s top election official with TDs and Senators.
Dublin city’s returning officer Joseph Burke highlighted the issue at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage on Tuesday, saying increased pay rates may be required to attract enough workers.
The warning comes as An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the Electoral Commission, outlined how an additional 250,000 people have joined the Electoral Register between last December and June this year.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has repeatedly said he intends for the Government to run its full term – which would indicate an election early next year – but there has been rampant speculation in political circles that it will be in November.
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Mr Burke told the committee how there are about 125 polling stations for five constituencies in Dublin city and he recruits and trains approximately 1,200 people to work in them on polling day.
Poll clerks, presiding officers and supervisors are the roles on offer. Pay for poll clerks in the 2020 general election was €367 for a 16-hour day.
However, Mr Burke said that the average net pay for a poll clerk working during recent electoral events was €220 for the day, though he said it depends what tax rate they are on.
He said feedback he had gotten from some people he hired previously is they were not prepared to do the work again, telling him this was “because ‘I didn’t think it’s worth my time based on what I got in take-home pay’”.
Mr Burke said: “In some cases, particularly Dáil elections, we get very short notice of an electoral event and this can make the recruitment and training of staff difficult.”
Mr Burke said his office has always recruited and trained sufficient staff for all electoral events.
He said, howerver, that with almost full employment in Ireland, recruitment is “becoming more challenging”.
He said: “The rate of pay for the hours that they are required to work and the responsibilities that they have is making it increasingly difficult to retain and recruit staff.”
He added that this has been highlighted with the Department of Public Expenditure and his office is “hopeful in the next charges order that the rates of pay can be increased”.
A Department of Public Expenditure statement said the charges order was revised earlier this year to take account of increases in public sector pay since 2021. It said the rates applicable were raised by 12.6 per cent.
The statement also said: “Subsistence payments are now made to poll clerks, presiding officers and supervisory presiding officers, which was not previously the case” and these changes were applied for the recent local and European elections.
It said: “It is intended that going forward the charges order will be revised at the start of each year to take account of any changes to public sector pay arising since the previous order was signed.”
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