Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for selecting this matter. Coming on the heels of the latest food safety issue, we find that the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, has failed to appoint members to the board of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and that the board cannot meet because it does not have a quorum. As yet the Minister has offered no satisfactory explanation for his failure to appoint members to the board of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. This is part of a pattern with positions on boards under the remit of the Minister for Health being left vacant. The new, more open method of appointment has not been availed of and, worse still, has actually been undermined by the Minister.

On 20 November I asked the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, the number and list of health agencies and boards that were awaiting ministerial appointments, how long they had been waiting and the number that did not have a quorum.

It was stated in the Minister's reply that there were 64 vacancies on nine boards within the remit of his Department, including six vacancies at that time on the board of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. The Minister advised me in November that the Food Safety Authority board had a quorum. We now know that this is no longer the case and that since November there have been only three members on that ten member board, which the CEO of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Professor Alan Reilly, has stated is far from satisfactory.

In the case of the Food Safety Authority, 25 people applied under the new procedures for a position on its board. The Minister continues to hold off on appointments despite our being reliably told the overwhelming number of those applicants are suitably qualified and eminent to take on any position of responsibility required by the board. What is going on in respect, in particular, of the Food Safety Authority board and the other boards under the Minister's remit?

See this speech in context