Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

Five years ago, I was deeply involved in a committee hearing process for the approval of the European Commission through the committee system in the European Parliament. The nominee for whom we had responsibility for questioning and debating with was Charlie McCreevy, because I was a member of the internal market committee of the European Parliament. It was a good system that was open, accountable and transparent. Journalists were present, people made their judgments and it worked. I cannot understand the arguments made by many of the speakers on the other side of the House as to the reason they will not support the Bill proposed by Fine Gael. They stated that it is because it has not gone far enough or has not been thought out properly or because Members must wait for an OECD report or another task force. Alternatively, the view expressed by the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, is that the current system is satisfactory.

Deputy Barry Andrews is a new and young Minister of State who I assume wishes to try to change and improve politics and to dispel the cynicism, anger and suspicion in which people in this profession now are held by so many members of the public. The current system of selecting, nominating and approving State board positions represents everything that is bad and secretive about politics. We need to change it and Fine Gael is bringing forward practical suggestions, based on what works elsewhere, as to how that may be done. Moreover, we do not suggest this is the perfect solution, which is the reason it has been put forward for a Second Stage debate in this Chamber. However, the Government could accept and then change the Bill.

Is it too much to ask that the principle be accepted that someone who will lead a State agency and who will work on behalf of the State, supposedly for the people's benefit, should be obliged to explain the reason they seek and are suitable for the job and to take questioning on that basis? The people who run the State bodies with which I am familiar would be delighted to do so because it would give them a greater mandate to provide the kind of leadership they wish to give. It would separate them from cosy connections with a Minister or relationships with the senior party in Government. This Bill is an attempt to move away from this and the Government should at least accept it in the spirit in which it was meant. It should take on board what Fine Gael Members are trying to suggest in this Bill, namely, an accountable system that enables Members to hold people to account, rather than setting up more State agencies, task forces and new bodies to do that on their behalf.

See this speech in context