Wanted: a special adviser on prison reform who must have spent at least two years in jail. The successful applicant will be employed in the constituency office of Clare Daly, the Dublin MEP.
In an advertisement in The Northside News, the qualifications required to be Daly’s adviser are said to be: “Must have served a custodial sentence of at least 24 months in an EU prison, have experience working with prisoners, and contributing to penal policy at European level.”
The advert said that the position comes with a €30,000 salary for a “minimum 40 hours per week, 24/7”.
Daly’s adviser will be based in Temple Bar, Dublin, where her European constituency office is located in the same building as the headquarters of the Communist Party of Ireland.
The closing date for receipt of applications is August 22.
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Daly did not reply to questions about the advertisement last week. Ged Nash, a Labour TD, claimed that its legality was questionable under the Organisation of Working Time Act.
“The advert is, to put it mildly, very poorly worded. The terms described would, if imposed, appear to represent a breach of Irish and EU working-time laws around breaks and minimum rest periods, and days off over a seven-day period worked,” said Nash, a former junior minister for employment.
“At the very least, Clare Daly might reflect on this and ensure the contract she ultimately awards fully complies with working-time laws and all aspects of hard-won employment rights legislation.”
Daly is a long-time campaigner for prisoners’ rights. As a Socialist Party councillor in 2003, she was sentenced to a month in Mountjoy jail, along with Joe Higgins, then a Dublin West TD, for breaches of court orders and for taking part in anti bin-charge protests.
In 2015, as a TD, she was held in Limerick prison for about 90 minutes over the non-payment of a €2,000 fine for breaching security at Shannon airport. Mick Wallace, then a TD and now also an MEP, was briefly held for the same offence.
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Daly is a member of the European parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs. A former union official at Aer Lingus, she contributed to a European parliament debate last month on “decent working and employment conditions” in aviation.
MEPs, who are paid a gross monthly wage of €8,995, get €25,620 a month to employ assistants, who may be based either at the European parliament in Brussels or in the MEP’s home country.
The EU website lists four assistants working for Daly at present, including Fionn Wallace, a son of Mick Wallace.
Michael Murphy, whom Daly married in 1999 — they now live apart — was previously on her staff as an assistant in Dublin.