Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Does the Taoiseach agree with the statement made by the Minister of State, Deputy Sargent, who said there is a need to clean-up the process by which people are appointed to public office and that there is a need to end the possibility of putting friends in high places? Will the Bill which the Green Party brought before the House last March 12 months, which the Labour Party supported, the purpose of which was to provide for an independent, merit-based system of making appointments to State boards, or anything like it, be brought before the House by the Government in the lifetime of this Dáil?

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