Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am very conscious of the requirement to maintain a gender balance and I try to meet it in the strongest way possible. I am glad to say a number of very competent and influential persons have been appointed across a range of boards.

In so far as the question relates to my office, many of the appointees, as the Deputy is aware, are nominees of organisations. They are not solely from the list of nominations that might come from my Department. I cannot give the Deputy details from the brief to answer the question he has raised about people working in the private sector within two years of leaving State appointments, but I will check the position and get back to him.

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