Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Public servants generally, particularly those in the departmental system, never involve themselves in political material or political drafting. Therefore, the answer to the Deputy's first question is "No". That has always been the position, even outside election periods.

On the Deputy's second question, those reports arise from an omnibus parliamentary question put down to all Ministers on all the vacancies and positions that arise. Board positions are filled as they arise. As I said before, it is not the position to wait until an election period and then fill them all. In my Department, the list that came out included appointments to the NESC and NDF boards, which are all the social partnership boards. These amount to 70 or 80 names and they are done in a pro forma way.

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