Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I did not realise that I had a right of reply and I did not take up my notes. I want to make a few points. On the general point about gender balance made by Deputy Fleming, I am obviously mindful of that in terms of State appointments, but since four of the six are by definition ex officio, I cannot demand under equality legislation that the Ombudsman be a woman or that the Clerk of the Dáil or the Comptroller and Auditor General be a woman. Everybody is entitled to apply for those particular jobs. The outgoing Ombudsman was a woman and the current one is a man; that is the way it works. We are now improving the likelihood of a former judge being a woman because we have appointed a number of female High Court judges in our term of office, thereby greatly increasing the number, and we have also increased the number of female Supreme Court judges. When we came into office there was only one and that judge had been appointed by us the last time we were in office. Therefore, we have increased the gender balance significantly.

On the general charge made by two Deputies that there was some tardiness in the appointment, we must have a little bit of respect for senior office holders. It would have been quite wrong to announce an appointment before somebody's term of office had been completed. I heard on a radio programme criticism of the fact that we had not appointed a replacement on the Sunday after the term of office had ended on a Friday. One single working day had not expired and there was a complaint, but that was odd, and it was the week before Christmas. There are the normal procedures of having to bring a proposal to Cabinet and ensure there is consent from the people involved, and then I wanted an opportunity to have a conversation to at least inform representatives of the Opposition before I tabled a resolution. Based on these considerations, I believe it was done extremely expeditiously. I wonder at the motivation of whoever decided it was a news story at the end of last year.

The Standards in Public Office Commission is a very important organisation and part of a suite of legislation we brought in to achieve much greater transparency. I take on board many of the points made by the Deputies opposite. We need to have clarity in regard to how politics works and who funds it, and expenditure limits so that we cannot buy votes. In jurisdictions such as the United States people are in permanent fund-raising mode and one's capacity to raise money determines one's ability to stand for public office. We should never be in that space.

One of our responses as a Government and as a Department to the Mahon report and other reports was that we would examine root and branch the overarching legislative provision for ethics, because it is layered, and see if we could consolidate it in a more useable way. We can address some of the issues raised by Deputies opposite in that discourse. I am not sure if one of the Deputies has a formed view on the inclusion of a former Oireachtas Member. That came from a recommendation of this House on an all-party basis for the very reason cited by Deputy Fleming. One needs to have a practical understanding of politics. One would not have an group overseeing doctors in the medical profession without having a doctor involved. We must have somebody with practical experience. One would not establish a teaching council without having a teacher involved. Somebody has to understand the nuts and bolts of it and be able to say "It does not work like that; this is how it works." I thought it was a good recommendation that we should maintain, but we can debate these matters in the future.

I welcome the support across the House from all parties and from Independents for the two nominees and I look forward to working closely with the existing SIPO in the challenging and demanding work that it has before it.

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