Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I join the general commendation to Deputy Varadkar on introducing this Bill, which attempts to commence the reform of the process relating to public appointments and to introduce a measure of transparency. The Government should accept the suggestion to the effect that there should be a greater level of transparency. If it has its own proposals in this regard, it should bring them forward.

A person offers an immense gift to the public - in an intergenerational sense - when he or she decides to serve on a public body. Many individuals have served in the capacity to which I refer. This generosity of spirit and practice has been recognised by all speakers. However, when one looks at the boards of State bodies, there are a number of characteristics to which I will turn, but one issue on which Members must be clear is that the single biggest failure has been in respect of ethics in the private sector. As Members will have an opportunity to note while discussing the NAMA legislation, the entire country is absolutely appalled at the breaches in regulation and the failure in basic standards of those who served on boards in the banking sector, which constituted an outrageous abandonment of public responsibility.

Members are reluctant to comment in the House on the ease with which people in highly distinguished professions moved onto the boards of such banks to serve as chairpersons or non-executive directors. Moreover, it was accepted that this was their normal transition. For example, Members should consider how it could be accepted that senior members of the legal profession automatically make non-executive directors par excellence. They did not; they let down the country and this should be printed across the front pages of all the newspapers. If one moves to consider other aspects, one can note that such persons are not only automatically deemed to be good appointments but that they should be on several boards. As it would be a reflection on their excellence were they merely to be on one board, they should be on several. Therefore, being on the board of one bank means one automatically should be on four or five more. Moreover, if one has served as chairman for a period, on stepping down why not go on another board as one's friend steps in? If one considers the network of directors across the financial services and banking sectors, it is a rather small and relatively limited number of people.

I move to the other side to find, for example, the ease with which former county and city managers automatically find that their excellent competence regarding matters pertaining to building development automatically qualifies them for property development companies. There are a number of examples in this regard. I do not for one second suggest they are guilty of the slightest of improprieties. However, I have been shocked by how few city and county managers have been moved to utter a single word of criticism, not to speak of condemnation, against the one of their number who came before the courts and was sent to prison. Therefore, as background to my support on behalf of the Labour Party for Deputy Varadkar's initiative, I am not fooled for one second by suggestions there are behaviours, practices or ethics in the private sector that could be transferred to the public sector. My comments stand as a condemnation of a terrible derogation of duty.

Incidentally, as a former Minister who is strongly in favour of the public service, I also wonder whether it is fair that former Secretaries General of Departments, who are mostly male, should have moved into directorships in so many semi-State and private companies. There should be a long period during which they disqualify themselves from such appointments. While engaging in this fit of honesty and candour, I have noticed a significant shift regarding the migration of such persons from the time of T. K. Whitaker and his successors. Prior to and during his time, it would have been highly unusual for people to move from the public sector, in which they would have had access to much information, to private sector companies. I will add for good measure that there have been some fine examples in which it has been singularly inappropriate.

I will turn to the current position and the future. Deputy Varadkar is suggesting a method of transparency and scrutiny by which one would examine people. As a Minister, I appointed people without ever knowing their political affiliations, some of whom were more controversial than others. I did not ask what were the political party preferences of Niall Stokes or Lelia Doolan. Equally, I have served with both main parties in government and when boards were being filled, the different parties had a certain quota to fill. Everyone in both Governments was in favour of improving the gender balance to a ratio of, say, 60:40. However, I support Deputy Varadkar's desire to move away from all this, which is a good idea.

Interestingly, when considering boards in the public realm, I find it difficult to understand the reason the universe was so limited. Some people are on four, five or six boards. Moreover, some people were so important they never could leave. They did not leave after serving one term but were reappointed repeatedly. I know of some persons who have spent nearly all their lives on State boards. As it happens and in order that they will not be too embarrassed, they have not delivered successes in such a significant sequence as to make them indispensable. Moreover, some are in the transport area. It is good to have reforming Ministers in the broadcasting and transport sectors, about which people should not be too upset. Others move from one board to another as such boards have a habit of spawning like fish and consequently one has sub-boards, agencies and so forth. The same people are in control to such an extent that they find they must chair such bodies also. Before one knows where one is, one has a plethora of boards on which the same few worthy but unselected individuals serve.

Other issues arise and I can discern matters regarding the implementation of reforming legislation. For example, I will take a board like one for which I had responsibility, namely, An Chomhairle Ealaíon or the Arts Council. I had two criteria when appointing members to that board. One was that, as Minister, I should be at arm's length from the operation of any board for which I had responsibility, be it the RTE Authority as it then was or the Arts Council. The other was that those appointed to the board would not be simply representative of interests as one would be obliged to ask them to take decisions beyond their own qualification or interest. One must be careful in this regard. For example, an appointee who is familiar with music also will be obliged to take decisions on the Arts Council that go beyond music and include dance, the visual arts, the future of education, access to artistic activities and so on. Consequently, one must find people who are both qualified in a particular interest and who are able to perceive a more general interest. However, the great value of having people who would come through a process such as that suggested by Deputy Varadkar or an amended version, were the Government willing to do this, is that they are not bound by time.

As any Member who has been a Minister is aware, on taking office one has four years - five at the most - to implement one's policy. Consequently, there is a very good reason to appoint, for example, a programme manager or an adviser and such individuals have been scandalously misrepresented. If one is to achieve one's programme, one really needs someone to move it along and a highly unfair opposition to that practice was generated. Equally, however, a person who is appointed to a board must take account of what will happen beyond the Government's term. One must think of the public interest as it extends over time. The great value of having someone who would be interviewed is that they would not be limited to the particular programme of a particular Government but genuinely would represent the public interest as they would construe it in the long term. Moreover, although it was ridiculous in many ways, it always was the case in a public service that was patriarchal, hierarchical and structured in Weberian terms that when they had all retired, they automatically found themselves on all-male boards. There was an under-representation of women, an under-representation by age and so forth. If one wants to understand how the old system does not work, one simply should ask oneself how many Secretaries' General of Departments are women, how many women are city and county managers and so forth. If the Government does not want to support Deputy Varadkar's Bill, let it come forward with its own but let it not suggest that everything is fine or that this is an interference with the balance between executive and representative Government. We urgently need ethics in the private sector, which is in a morass, and we need it in the public sector. This Bill is a very good beginning and I support the initiative.

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