Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I was delighted to see this question because we need a debate on these matters. This is a small country. I read the published list of the 60 people mentioned. While I was not going to mention names, I will mention one. Ms Adi Roche who was appointed to the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland is regarded as a crony. How could someone who has spent most of her life championing the Chernobyl issue not be a suitable candidate to be on the board of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland? Should she be debarred from membership because she offered herself for public office?

One of the things that was regarded in the article as serving to debar a person or make him or her a crony was that he or she had worked on a policy committee of a political party or had given advice to a political party. In opposition I chaired the policy committee of the Labour Party and invited in experts whose political affiliation I did not know to work on policy development. Academics and many others gave us the benefit of their expertise to shape policy. It would be extraordinary if participation in the public democratic sphere in that way debarred such persons, or if being a councillor or speaking publicly in favour of a political view was to debar them. That would be extraordinary in a small economy.

We need to have a rational debate on this matter. There is a downside if we label everybody who has a political opinion or works on a policy committee. I am sure the Deputy's party has policy committees working and, without knowing their politics, is inviting experts such as economists or statisticians to work with them. That they should be debarred or regarded as cronies is an extraordinary, limiting and perverse view. Purity means one has to be almost apolitical. It would be a hugely damaging perspective with regard to the way public business is done if that was to be the norm.

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