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

The rules are the rules. They do reflect a one-party state when the Government of the day can propose anything it likes and Members of the Oireachtas who are not Government supporters cannot do so. I see the illogicality of it.

Returning to the spirit of what Deputy McConalogue proposes, and an earlier question that arose. If the expenses regime changes as all kinds of other matters have had to change, I get the sense from members here that, all other matters being equal, it is desirable that representatives of the ETB, either full members or persons nominated by it to be members of a board of management of a school, should be facilitated. I understand this is what Deputy McConalogue is trying to achieve. As a result, logically, a problem may well arise. The net point is do we trust each other as elected democrats, with the staff representatives and with the parents' representative. Say, for the sake of argument, that in Carrick-on-Shannon there is no member on the board of management who will be able to sit but that a presence on the ETB is desired. If such a person cannot be an elected member of the board, a parent representative who, by coincidence, might be from the same school, or a staff member who might live in the area and who could attend the community, then the elected members - they would be ten out of the 14 - could decide in the normal way in which politics works to nominate somebody who is well known - it could be a party activist or a respected person - who is willing to go on the board of the community school in that area. Deputy McConalogue suggests if there are two such members there is a guarantee that there will always be oversight if an issues arises.

We do not have any democratic accountability in the free voluntary sector. There are just under 500 schools in that sector and we do not know what goes on.

I refer to the existing management infrastructure. An existentialist crisis is imminent here. The Catholic Church and the religious teaching orders provided an infrastructure of highly-dedicated highly-motivated persons. For whatever reason - one can dispute their motivation or not, but one cannot doubt their motivation and commitment to education - they are disappearing in terms of real numbers. There is an emerging vacuum arising in this regard. We have a period over the next three to four years to provide for democratic accountability in terms of membership. I refer to a citizen, not an elected member, who is appointed by the ETB of, for instance and to take the biggest one geographically, Mayo, Sligo and Leitrim. The Government is asking the person would he or she be prepared to represent the ETB in his or her capacity as a citizen by sitting on the board of the community school in his or her area because he or she has a connection with the school or whatever. In that way if anything untoward arises or if there is an issue we can then make a contribution. That is essentially what we are concerned with.

While the amendment is out of order, I can resubmit it at Report Stage if I wish. The present system of democratic accountability is limited geographically, with 16 as against 33 areas, and there were more than 33. I think I am correct in stating that, originally, there were 38 VECs at one stage. There is a big difference between 38 and 16.

Logistically, it will not be possible to have the eyes and ears of the ETB on the board of a school for the reason we suggested. It seems better that we have the capacity to nominate through the ten elected members which, given our political system, will be broadly cross-party representative. Given proportional representation, it will certainly be democratically representative unlike the free voluntary sector. This is not in any way to impugn the free voluntary sector. They will have to address their issues of accountability and representation. The legacy of the VECs since 1930 is that, however imperfect, ultimately, it still has a line of democratic accountability that does not exist anywhere else in the post-primary sector.

We are changing the geography. We are reducing the number to 16. It seems we should have representation indirectly, if not directly. We are providing for it directly but we are saying that if the member does not live in the area, then he or she is invalid as a member for the board of management of a particular school, and there is a coherence about that.

I understand Deputy McConalogue's amendment provides that at all stages the eyes and ears of the ETB will be present on the boards of management of schools in question. Is that a fair description?