Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 16, line 31, after “of” where it secondly occurs to insert “up to”.

This relates to the term of office of an appointment. The Bill originally specified that it should be five years and was rigid and specific about that number. Some amendments were proposed dealing with how that could be staggered and so on. The most sensible and appropriate way to deal with it would be to state the term of appointment for members of the board as "up to" five years. That provides the opportunity of a maximum term of five years. At the moment the public service code recommends the maximum term of service on a State board to be eight years. If we had a rigid five years in this Act, it would mean that, if members of the board were to be appointed for a second term, and they could only be appointed for five years, they would then be on the board for ten years which would breach the current best practice guidelines on full length of service on a board.

The way it is now structured, amendment No. 19 provides for appointments to the board for a period of up to five years. This means, for example, you could choose to appoint the board at the start for five years and, subsequently, reappoint some members for three years, or it could be decided at the start to appoint board members for four years or whatever. It is not as rigid and is a better way to deal with it. These amendments propose that a member of the regulator shall hold office for a period of "up to" five years from the date of appointment, "as the Minister shall determine".

The deletion of sections 23(4), 23(5) and 23(6), which outline what was a more elaborate approach in trying to ensure that the membership of the board would be staggered so that everybody would not step down at the same time, means I can now get rid of those other three amendments. Amendment No. 19 proposes to make the period "up to" five years as opposed to a rigid five years. We can then delete ancillary pieces about how the appointment of members of the board should be staggered. It is just a lot cleaner and a much more straightforward way to do it. It will also be a great deal more robust in the long term.