Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I met Mr. Barry and Mr. Neely yesterday in advance of this meeting and I was encouraged because they have hit the ground running. I have had a meeting of the board in situand a meeting with management, and there will be a further meeting later this week. In answering my questions, Mr. Barry and Mr. Neely said they had a sense that IFI was a professional functioning organisation, and while it has gone through a difficult period, that has not hindered its ability to carry out its tasks and complete the accounts and all the other measures we need to take. They were impressed with what they saw in an organisation that had been through a difficult time yet still had strong morale.

There remain a number of outstanding protected disclosures, being examined both by my Department and by Inland Fisheries Ireland. It was appropriate for some to be handled by the Department and others by the agency. We have given Inland Fisheries Ireland what they need to be processed as quickly as possible because those outstanding issues need to be resolved, and the same goes for our Department. The timelines for that governance review, as I said in my opening statement, runs to six months. I expect that during that time, this committee, along with me and my ministerial colleagues, will do the work in order that we will be able to replace the board quickly.

Senator Kyne asked why we should not just replace some of the members and not others. I felt strongly that in this instance, the best approach was to elect a new board and to use the mechanisms we have for that, including this committee. We can do that having had sight of the governance review and report from the two managers who have been appointed, Mr. Barry and Mr. Neely, who are of the highest standard and seem, as I said, to have hit the ground running.