Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The national parents' associations' collective bodies draw their candidates from the parents' associations within each school. If I am on the parents' association of my local school, we collectively come together and put forward candidates for consideration. Under the old legislation, it was not necessary for that candidate to be a parent of a child in the school. Under the new legislation, it will be an absolute necessity for them to be parents. The democratic right and power of parents to exert influence over the policy direction of the ETBs will be enhanced rather than detracted from as a result of this. Those parents' representatives in parents' associations in each individual school are the ones put forward for election. Those names emanate from within the parent organisation within each school. In the past, sometimes people nominated by the local parents' association were not parents of children in the school at the time but perhaps were nominated for some other reasons best known to the parents' association.

Could Deputy O'Brien recap the point he made?

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