Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have no hard opinion as to the precise methodology of doing this. I have sympathy for what members are trying to do, whether that relates to a business representative or an adult learner. In the past, a former councillor who ran a shop and lost his or her seat in an election could end up representing the business community because he or she is a mate, etc., and unless we specify clearly what is the business community or an adult learner, we will have a problem. For example, if people are doing a course, they are learning and, therefore, they are adult learners, even though they may have stood and failed to be elected to the local council. Those are the dynamics that we all know within our own parties but they are within the democratic space that makes politics work. The alternative is to say to IBEC to nominate a business representative or to NALA to nominate an adult learner. Does that dilute democratic accountability and control from the point of view of the party system because democracy does not exist without the party system? We are one of the few democracies in Europe that pays no recognition to the role of political parties in democracy, which is why the so-called leader's allowance that goes to individual Oireachtas Members does so because legally - I was the Minister for Finance who brought it in with the then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Howlin - one cannot discriminate against Members who are not members of a political party.

If the responsibility is left to the elected members of the ETBs to have a say in who is co-opted onto them, it will be left to the elected political system, in which I have full faith, notwithstanding the individual failures of all of us on occasions. If it is left to outside nominating bodies such as the chamber of commerce, IBEC or NALA, will responsibility and power be ceded with no accountability? To whom ultimately is NALA responsible or to whom ultimately would the board of a particular chamber of commerce be accountable?

We are setting down a provision that will probably operate with few amendments for the next 20 or 25 years and whatever amendment is made will be limited in scope. I would like all of us to consider that. There is no ideological division on any of this between us. We all know what we are trying to do but how can we appoint people to an ETB with a contribution to make who have specific informed experience of adult learning or who know business in a way that they can simply say the courses provided by the ETB, as distinct from the VEC schools or PLC courses, are of no relevant employment application to the needs of their community and the jobs that could be create as distinct from appointing somebody who is in business but is only being appointed to the board by virtue of his or her political connections rather than his or her business expertise?