Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 102:

In page 16, line 25, to delete “by the Minister” and substitute “through the public appointments process”.

Section 15 of the Bill relates to the board of the agency. I am strongly of the view that all appointments to the board, whether of the chair or of other members, should be made through the public appointments process. This is a discussion we had frequently with the previous Government and ordinarily we were told that, even though the appointment is made by the Minister, it is intended that the public appointments process be used. The difficulty, however, is that, unless this process is explicitly required by the legislation, the process for public appointments may be bypassed. In fact, if I understand correctly, that happened recently in respect of some appointments made by the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to the Climate Change Advisory Council. We have a public appointments process for a reason, which is to ensure that there can be no political patronage or cronyism, and nor can there be a perception of such patronage or cronyism.

I am therefore strongly of the view that all such appointments to State boards, whether they be the boards of commercial or non-commercial agencies, should be made through that process.