Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

-----political affiliation. In recent times, there has been no evidence in some of the cases known to each of us in the House to suggest that the criterion brought to bear was anything but political affiliation.

The entry of my colleagues in the Green Party who shared my concern has reminded me of the disgraceful happenings in the Equality Authority. Before the chief executive was forced out, the Minister teed it up by cleaning out the authority's board and bringing in a new board. He stated that he was worried about the cost, so he appointed four extra directors. Whereas the previous directors had functioned free, gratis and for nothing and gave of their time and their expertise, he caused a stipend of just under €10,000 to be paid to the enlarged board. I do not want to be personal about some of the people now on the board, one of whom is the director of elections for an Independent Deputy. I could comment on some of the others. The first action was to dismiss the chief executive, who was doing his job as envisaged in law. Unfortunately, the Green Party did not take a stand on this matter when one would have expected it to, since I do not doubt the bona fides of its Members' horror about what occurred.

There are too many public bodies, some with enormous budgets and, in certain cases, established to obviate the necessity for a Minister to answer questions in the House. The written reply from the Minister tells one to apply to an bord such and such. By the time one gets an answer, whatever was the pressing urgency has passed. There is no adequate mechanism in the House to hold bodies with large budgets of public money to account. The Bill is a modest step in the right direction and, for that reason, it has our support.

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