Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 29:

In page 35, line 12, after "Minister" to insert "or an authorised officer of the Department".

The Bill states: "The Minister may for the purposes of enforcing this Act or an EU measure, appoint in writing, such persons or classes of person as he or she considers appropriate to be authorised officers". We discussed this on Committee Stage and it seems to me that it is a meaningless task when the Minister personally receives lists of proposed authorised officers and does not know them from Adam but has to sign off on them. He should be able to appoint somebody from within the Department to make those appointments. I do not understand why it all has to land on his desk.

I had the experience of appointing deciding officers in the Department of Social Welfare and I received long lists of people to appoint. I did not know them from Adam. What could I do but appoint them all as they came onto my desk? Would it not have been more practical if some assistant secretary could have appointed them all and saved me the bother? At least that person would have some responsibility for them on a line management basis.

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