Mr. Michael Dowling:

There are nine members on the board - four appointed by the Minister, four from industry and one from Northern Ireland. The consultation paper set out a way we could broaden the constituency from which we would draw new industry members. Obviously, the affiliates have a variety of views on that. We are in the process of meeting them and listening to their views. We met five of the affiliates jointly within the last month. They are to come back with a more formal position on their suggestions. There are three or four other affiliates who have given views on the consultation document and we are in the process of setting up meetings with them. I would envisage that those meetings will take place within the next week or two. After that, we have to sit down and take account of their views, as well as the views we set out in the document. What we are trying to do is to get a broader range of people to come on to the board, taking account of the fact that we need greater diversity and that we also have to have gender balance. The old system of appointing people to the board was not necessarily capable of giving us the gender balance. It will be a couple of months before we will be in a position to move forward on the appointments.