Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Appointments to Public Bodies Bill. It is high time the Oireachtas addresses this area and I compliment the Green Party on bringing the Bill before the Dáil. Its drafting raises serious technical issues but the Labour Party will support it.

The Labour Party introduced the 40% gender quota with regard to State boards. From my time as Minister of State I recall great difficulties in appointing the best possible board. Having nominees from particular bodies on a board does not always lead to appointing the best people. Issues such as worker participation on State boards are a different matter. I was never convinced of the prudence of having a number of people on boards who were nominees of particular bodies because one sometimes ended up with people who were good at getting themselves elected rather than people one would want.

Ministerial discretion, if properly exercised, is important in the context of appointing State boards. With regard to the gender quota, I recall occasions when we had great difficulty in finding people with the proper qualifications to appoint to boards. It has become less of an issue in the intervening time.

I also remember issues raised when drafting legislation with regard to creating a proper formula to describe the people one wants and avoiding a situation where people who did not have the wherewithal to take up positions could be appointed. Phrases such as "experience in" and "knowledge of" were used. This is extremely important in terms of appointing the right board.

I wish to input some ideas to the debate and it is difficult to get the lay-out of legislation on this right. We must ensure openness, transparency and public accountability when making public appointments. I suggest where appointments to any office, positions of employment or directorships of a public body are proposed to be made by the Government, a Minister or a Minister of State, the Government or Minister should, as soon as possible, lay certain documents before the Oireachtas prior to making an appointment. I suggest among these documents would be a copy of a proposed contract or a statement in writing of the proposed terms and conditions applicable to the appointment, a statement dealing with the procedures followed for the purpose of making an appointment specifying whether the vacancy was advertised and, if not, why not, whether applications were invited and, if so, from whom and whether competitions or interviews were held.

I also suggest including a statement on the selection criteria adopted by the Government or Minister, including any quotas, guidelines or practices relating to the appointment of members of particular groups specifying the qualifications considered necessary or desirable for the appointment.

I also suggest that including a statement of the qualifications of the person proposed for the appointment is relevant and a statement of any previous appointments or contract for services made or awarded in respect of that person by the Government, a Minister or a Minister of State is important. The documents should also include a statement on whether the person proposed for the appointment is or was a connected person to any public representative who is a member of a political party forming the Government or part of it or a member of any such political party, specifying the connection and the political party.

With regard to the public bodies we are discussing, a major necessity would be to instruct Oireachtas joint committees that under their orders of reference they may, and where a request is made in writing by no fewer than one third of the members shall, consider and report on any such proposed appointments as it sees fit, shall periodically consider and report upon the general trend of such appointments, may suggest alterations and improvements in procedures for making such appointments and may for those purposes hold hearings and take evidence.

It is important to have a full mechanism for accountability such as bodies responsible to the Oireachtas which can take evidence through the committees. This issue concerns many of us. The main example is how difficult it is for us as Members of the Dáil to obtain information from the HSE. We table parliamentary questions which are referred to the political division of the HSE. Even though procedures are improving and we receive answers more quickly, I find it difficult to accept a scenario where there is no direct accountability to the House and the Minister is not answerable in a particular area. It is clearly a problem not only with the HSE, other bodies are affected by the same issue.

I have outlined procedures that would be well worth exploring. The ideas include that procedures shall apply to nominations for appointment to any office or position which the Government, a Minister or Minister of State, by virtue of the State's membership of an international body, proposes to make. Such procedure shall not apply to appointments to membership of the Seanad, appointment of judges, offices of the Defence Forces, members of the Garda Síochána or civil servants. I suggest this restriction is prudent and wise overall.

Essentially, these are ideas I have floated. Ultimately, the major issue with regard to any of these State bodies is that they serve the purpose for which they are set up and that the membership would be the optimum membership in terms of achieving those goals.

The reason the Green Party introduced the Bill and the reason other parties are concerned is to ensure appointments are not made inappropriately, such as to reward political cronies etc. In these cases there would be very serious questions about the competence of the person being nominated to fill positions.

Other practices are operated by these bodies. For example, some directors or other appointees would have a three-year span, with others having a five-year span or whatever the case may be. It is clearly important that people do not get dug in, so to speak, and sit for too long on particular bodies when there is a need for fresh thinking.

See this speech in context