Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not have any questions. I am familiar with the State companies and I have been a director with one for two terms, so I know the challenges, the complexities and the tensions that can arise between a board and delivering for shareholders. I do not know what the dividend is, and I am amazed and shocked at the number of State companies that do not deliver any dividend to the State. Every company should be commercial and viable in the long term, whatever about the short term, with regard to their key objectives. Clearly Mr. Keohane has vast experience and has not been chosen because of the lack of it. I have gone to the trouble to look at both Ervia and Mr. Keohane's record and I am highly impressed. I wish him well and I hope we will have, and develop, a good relationship be it with this committee or whatever committee is relevant to aspects of his work. It is going to be a major task and there will, quite obviously, always be political tensions. However, that is the great thing about having a stand-alone, focused, strategic body that will, in this case, oversee the corporate governance of the issues. I wish him well in what will be a very difficult task in the years ahead.