Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that the Minister has put in place what looks, on the face of it, to be a perfect system. While it is perfect in theory, it is not working in practice, which is why I tabled this question. It is clear to anyone who has been following this issue that 60 appointees to State boards since the Government took office were specifically affiliated to and had connections with either Fine Gael or the Labour Party. An agreement has been mentioned by Ministers and seen under FOI legislation which suggests there is a ratio of 2:1 in the political affiliations of appointees.

Let me be very clear. I am not saying the appointees are not suitable for the job, but there is an over-emphasis on political connections. While many of them may have good experience, I do not consider that the system is broad enough. The proof of this is in the appointments to HIQA, where only one of the 40 people who had applied got onto the board, whereas the majority of appointments made by other Ministers involved people who had never applied in the first place. The old system is alive and well. The majority of appointees should not be coming through this system.

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