Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I assure Deputy Ó Caoláin that I always listen to his every word with the greatest of care. I was commenting on his amendments since they do not seek — neither do those tabled by Deputy McManus — to prescribe how the Minister should make his own appointments. They purport to describe how all the appointments to the council, which is the overarching body regulating such professions, and the individual registration boards should be made. I reiterate my original point that it is Government policy to secure gender equality in the composition of such boards. However, to provide so in the context of such boards is for the Minister to dictate the consequence of a nomination from a professional body or the course of an election.

Deputy Gormley put it rather well when he said that the problem may lie in the electoral system that we habitually use in Ireland, generally the spot vote or a single transferable vote. For example, if a list system was to be employed in such elections that might be a way of securing a particular outcome. However, that would require a proposal of much greater detail than that before us. What is before the House this evening is a simple direction to the Minister to ensure that 40% of the appointments should belong to a particular gender. Were we to so legislate, the Minister would then, in effect, have to tell a particular professional body that he cannot accept the freely chosen representative of its registration board, as per its electoral mandate and that it must reballot until such time as the necessary number of acceptable appointees of a particular gender is reached. I do not believe that is a tenable proposition.

Equally, in the case of the overall council the nominations come from the individual registration boards representing the particular boards. The Minister would have to give a direction to those boards that he cannot accept their nominations unless they belong to a particular gender. The question would arise as to which particular boards would have to be given such a direction. When all of those issues are looked at one can see the problems which this House may well have to address, though in a different context, as to how gender equality may be ensured. To provide for it in this legislation would require legal architecture of considerably greater sophistication than that which has been put before the House this evening by Deputies Ó Caoláin and McManus, although I accept the spirit in which the amendments were tabled. If I have given Deputy Ó Caoláin the impression otherwise, I am sorry for so doing. I accept it is an issue that must be attended to, but this legislation illustrates very well that it is not as simple a matter as it often seems. Very few Bills, nowadays, provide that a Minister appoints, say, ten persons at his or her discretion, to a particular board. The trend, in statutory draftsmanship, has been towards restricting the scope of the discretion of the Minister and trying to insist that members of particular boards have appropriate qualifications. That is evident in this legislation and it makes the task of gender balance all the more difficult.

Add to this the fact that here we are providing representative machinery for professions and there is very great difficulty. As regards the public interest appointment, in the case of a profession where there is a substantial female or male composition, it can be difficult to identify persons who have the type of public interest knowledge of the given professional activity, as distinct from being a member of the profession, and who meet the gender requirements. These are difficulties that Ministers have to grapple with. I am happy to reiterate what the Tánaiste said, which will certainly warrant what has been said in the House this evening being taken into consideration in the making of any appointments that are at our discretion.

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