Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

No. I do not advertise them because the existing companies and boards are listed in various publications. If they have such interest, there is absolutely nothing to prevent them from writing to the Minister to ask to be considered for membership of a board. I have done that once or twice — no more than that — in my ten or 12 years in the House on the basis of a curriculum vitae I received. I often take formal and informal recommendations from civil servants who know people and from both Opposition and Government Members. If somebody wants to be considered for appointment to a board, there is nothing to stop him or her. I do not believe in setting up a bureaucracy for such appointments.

I do not make an apology, nor would any other Member, for a Minister with responsibility for a particular agency seeking to make sure people appointed to its board know what he or she wants and requires from the company and its board and appointing somebody on that basis. There is nothing wrong with it. The notion of independence in appointments to State boards is a nonsense. A Minister must appoint a board to act on his behalf as shareholder. If I appoint a board that does not necessarily subscribe to a Government view of where the company should go, it will only cause difficulties, as happened in the past.

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