Ms Attracta U? Bhroin:

In the worst-case scenario, it could be an absolute nightmare. In head 7, there is no preclusion on departmental appointees, basically civil servants, or somebody who has just recently exited the Civil Service. We could have a system whereby the Minister appoints a team that is entirely departmentally orientated in terms of the system that is being prescribed, the profile of experience that is being considered and the balance of the board could be entirely at his discretion. The ultimate worst-scenario outcome that we could see from this is a total lack of public confidence in the independence of the board. That is the ultimate aim we should be trying to achieve. We should have public confidence in the board and public confidence in the process for the appointments of the board. This particular system lends itself to absolute abuse. With the greatest respect to the current Minister, in the worst-case scenario, we could have the Minister having total authority to choose whatever system he wants, appoint whatever committee he wants, make up whatever regulations he wants in respect of the skills and requirements and then he has total discretion to appoint the board out of that. We could have a very imbalanced, inadequate, compromised board.