Dr. Theresa Reidy:

We can learn a great deal from international practice in the appointment of commissions. I will go back to the Canadian example. The Canadian Government consults the other political parties in the Canadian Parliament, a person is agreed on, he or she appears before a parliamentary committee and he or she is formally appointed by a vote of the Canadian Parliament. There are three-person or ten-person commissions in many other countries, some of which were mentioned in the examples given by Professor Marsh. Similar procedures are followed and there is a great deal of advance scrutiny. I suppose there is nothing to say a Government could not insist on a partisan appointment but in a substantial democracy, it is very unlikely to get away with it. All of the procedures involve consultation.

The Deputy's other question related to scale. The annual budget of the body in New Zealand is NZ$6 million. It has a permanent staff of 30, which expands in advance of an election when polling and tabulation staff are recruited. On the other end of the spectrum, the Canadian body has a permanent staff of approximately 500. I think its annual budget was C$87 million last year. It spends approximately C$100 million on each election. Canada is an enormous country, even if its population is not that big, and it has quite a complicated federal structure. Perhaps the Irish case would be more towards the New Zealand end of the spectrum.

The last thing I would like to say relates to gender balance. The point we are making, and I think the Government and all parties have agreed to this, is that there should be a 40% gender balance on all State boards. That principle should also be adhered to in terms of the composition of the commission.

In regard to the gender legislation and the quotas which have been introduced, in due course, the electoral commission would be responsible for administering those and there are certainly quite a lot of other areas where it could make contributions in terms of improving gender balance. However, it is important to say that the commission itself cannot transform anything, although it can work with other strategies in that particular area.