Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have my own observations and views on how this whole shambles has arisen and it goes back to the 2011 contract. Issues arose with that contract and there was an amount of toing and froing. The whole business was never finalised. Is that the position? The Minister knows what follows from a legal standpoint. Issues arose which fell into abeyance in the period when there was a change of chairman. One chairman was dealing with those issues and then they were passed over to his successor.

The second issue that arises is the business case, although I accept that the Minister is not in a position to answer many of the questions that arise. This was the third appointment. When one becomes a county manager, one holds the position for seven years. After that, with a begging letter and every reference possible from local authority members, one might hold the position for a further three years. That is ten years, maximum, for a county manager. County managers are people who run large corporations, so to speak. In order to substantiate this reappointment, surely a business case would have had to be made for going outside the governance rules as laid down by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which were only updated recently. Those rules are now even more strict, rigorous and vigorous than before. This is real the issue, namely the disregard for the guidelines that are in place. Regardless of who is in the position now, this has significant implications for corporate governance and for the Department's guidelines going forward, if they can just be disregarded in this fashion.