Ms Josephine Feehily:

I wish to address a couple of points. To clarify, some of the Deputy's quotations about marking schemes and so on are not in the Act. I have discussed the broad shape that he described with Deputy O'Callaghan. We have significant responsibility in terms of determining the specification for the role, but Deputy Wallace is right, in that we hand the process over to the PAS to run the competition. That is what the statute says. There is no other way of interpreting it. The PAS runs the competition within the framework of its Act and determines who will sit on the selection board. However, the authority is clear, in that we would expect detailed engagement about the composition of the board and the processes that the PAS will use in order for us to be satisfied that it is a valid competition. I see this working in a collaborative way.

The Deputy mentioned the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Justice and Equality being represented on the board. Unless he is referring to the board of the PAS, no discussion of any description has taken place about the composition of an interview panel. After the letter that we received today from Ms Kathleen O'Toole, we are still a long way away from having any conversation about the composition of the interview panel. The authority's position is that we expect to be strongly represented on such an interview panel whenever it is formed. Other than that, I do not disagree with the Deputy's description of the shape of the process. It is what it is.